Shred Sisters

“She was used to getting her way, it was only a matter of finding the right combination. She could soften my father with a pouty frown; our mother wasn’t as easy to crack. She believed that Ollie had been indulged because of her beauty; she learned that she could take advantage of people and get away with bad behavior.”

The manipulative behavior that Amy describes here is eventually framed as part of Ollie’s mental illness—or, at least, as part of the way in which she copes with her mental illness. The passage thus foreshadows Ollie’s coming struggles. In addition, it clearly shows the parents’ tendencies toward denial: Dad indulges Ollie’s behavior, while Mom misunderstands its source. Neither can bring themselves to believe that Ollie’s behavior might stem from illness, something that Ollie cannot fully control without treatment.

“She said a life of crime wasn’t for everyone. She loved all the movie outlaws: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Bonnie and Clyde, but most of all, the con artist father-daughter duo in the movie Paper Moon.”

Ollie aggrandizes her exploits, framing them in terms of her favorite characters. Ollie’s love of film is telling, as she herself will become quite adept at acting, which serves as another way in which to cope with (or mask) her mental illness. The comparison to Paper Moon highlights the dysfunctional relationship that Ollie develops with Dad: Together, they work to “con” their way out of the consequences of Ollie’s encounters with the law.

“My parents split slowly, like the subterranean forces that pulled apart the jagged coasts of South America and Africa. You could say Ollie was the force that drove them apart.”

Amy employs a simile here to describe the divorce of her parents. This image implies that, like continents, both parents are vast and solid, strong and connected—but neither their strength nor their connection can resist the force that is Ollie. Their marriage is divided along the fault lines of Ollie’s mental illness, developing the theme of Familial Trauma and the Power of Forgiveness.

“At fourteen, I knew I was too old to indulge in these make-believe scenarios but they were familiar and soothing, little worlds I lorded over.”

Amy pretends to shine her father’s shoes, inventing a game she calls “Cobbler.” Her behavior indicates her lack of control in real life—in particular, the chaotic circumstances surrounding her sister’s mental illness and her parents’ slow separation. She can exercise control over the events within her imaginary worlds and relies on this as a coping mechanism.

“My mother didn’t believe Ollie was suffering. She always maintained that if Ollie had gone to a detention center after her arrest, she would have straightened out. All this therapy was just a way for privileged kids to avoid legal consequences for their bad actions. Ollie had been caught stealing, and we, her family, were suffering on account of it.”

Mom remains in denial about Ollie’s mental illness throughout her life. She believes that discipline and punishment are the only ways to alter Ollie’s behavior. Amy’s description also reveals Mom’s tendency to view herself as a martyr, as she believes that she suffers as much as, or more than, Ollie.

“The club was loud, chaotic, rebellious. The walls were graffitied many times over, the music was deafening. From the minute she heard punk rock, it became her church of choice.”

Ollie escapes the confines of the psychiatric hospital to enjoy a night at CBGBs, the legendary punk-rock club. The club mirrors Ollie’s character—“loud, chaotic, rebellious”—and the music fuels her. The metaphor likening the club to a church thus suggests that Ollie worships at the altar of her own inner turmoil expressed in sound—an idea that partially reflects Amy’s impatience with her sister.

“Forever after, she would maintain that the real theft was the time taken out of her life while she was at The Place. She would never forgive my parents for locking her up.”

Ollie never takes responsibility for the theft of the belongings from a friend’s house, which precipitated her hospitalization. Instead, she shifts the blame onto her parents for agreeing to the arrangement (a stay at The Place rather than jail), framing herself as the victim rather than the perpetrator.

“My mother believed in marriage the way some people believe in the Declaration of Independence. By faithfully doing her duties, she thought she would be rewarded with the dignity accorded wives and widows as they navigate the empty nest, retirement, and old age.”

Amy’s comparison of marriage to a founding document of the US both elevates the institution of marriage (a foundational contract) and wryly deflates it: Instead of upholding the values of a nation, a wife must support her husband, and her reward is aging in a way that society deems respectable. Amy thus satirizes her mother’s attitude toward wedlock, which the divorce itself undercuts.

“Many years later I realized that they were both playing a part: a father-daughter duo on the lam, conning judges, law enforcement, psychiatrists, themselves.”

This passage recalls Ollie’s love for Paper Moon and how it reflects her relationship with her own father. They are con artists, just like Ryan O’Neal and his real-life daughter, Tatum, play in the movie. Instead of confronting the reality of Ollie’s mental illness, they concoct dramatic scenes.

“I couldn’t say exactly when Josh moved in, but the apartment filled with books on art and acting, a folk art painting he found in the street, thick restaurant mugs and plates from Oscar’s Salt of the Sea where he briefly worked as a busboy. After we went to the Van Gogh exhibit at the Met, he painted the kitchen wall azure blue and filled a pitcher with sunflowers. He found an auctioneer’s podium on the sidewalk outside Christie’s, gave it a faux-marble finish, and turned it into a dictionary stand. And every morning, he made a show of folding the sheet and blanket he used on the couch.”

The intensity of Josh’s presence becomes apparent in Amy’s detailed descriptions of how his taste and personality crowd her apartment. His bold personality, along with his wandering existence and inability to focus, is reminiscent of Ollie—although it takes Amy a long time to recognize this. Amy supports him financially, and he pretends to pursue work.

“I imagined myself as Winged Victory, a headless figure with enormous broken wings. I wanted to hold Josh inside me no matter how much it hurt. I wanted him to be the rough waves I would swim against for the rest of my life.”

When Amy finally has sex with Josh, she imagines herself as the Winged Victory of Samothrace, an enormous ancient Greek statue once set upon the prow of a boat: She, too, is liberated and victorious over her inhibitions. The metaphor is extended in the way Amy “swim[s] against” the “rough waves” of Josh’s unpredictable ocean, forgetting that the statue’s journey could easily end in wreckage (as their relationship does).

“I recalled Ellen’s advice: go to the audition telling yourself you’ll get the part. I took the subway to Midtown, rehearsing my lines.”

Ollie is not the only Shred sister to imagine that she is playing a part. Amy prepares herself for a job interview by recasting it as an audition. Rather than being her actual, authentic self, she thus inhabits a character to navigate daily life. Ironically (but perhaps unsurprisingly), she dresses herself as Ollie might in an example of the Sisters as Opposites and Mirror Images.

“Hunt had a craftsman house with a pool in the hills behind Chateau Marmont. She stayed in the guesthouse at first and soon moved into his bedroom. Hunt enjoyed having her on his arm at premieres and industry functions. Ollie was never impressed by actors and directors, was never starstruck or fawning the way most people acted in their presence, and that impressed Hunt.”

Ollie finds some stability, financially and otherwise, with Hunt, though she continues to vacillate between the security he offers and her impulses. Notably, Ollie is not enthralled by the Hollywood types she meets in the course of Hunt’s work—the implication being that they do not impress her because she herself is already a great actor.

“‘You’re mysterious, Amy Shred,’ he said. At last my reticence was interpreted as allure.”

Marc Goodyear, who will eventually become Amy’s husband (although the marriage is short-lived), misunderstands her shyness. That fundamental misunderstanding informs the unraveling of their marriage: Amy is closed off, hampered by her fear of betrayal after growing up with Ollie’s unpredictable behavior, and therefore does not invest in the relationship as Marc wants. Even his name, Goodyear, gestures to the brevity of their union.

“My emotions ramped up, convinced that whatever was in the box would either humiliate me or destroy my relationship with Marc. I was so sure of it that I grabbed the box from his plate, pulled off the top, and clawed through the tissue paper and cotton batting. At the bottom of the box were two gold blobs. Marc reached in and held up the cuff links: a tortoise and a hare.”

Amy’s mother gives Marc this gift upon first meeting him. It symbolizes many things: First and foremost, it implicitly juxtaposes the sisters (Amy’s slowly maturing tortoise to Ollie’s fast-moving hare). It also reveals Mom’s impatience to see Amy settled and wed as convention demands. She hopes that Marc, in this case, will be the hare to Amy’s tortoise.

“From a practical point of view, the divorce was cut-and-dried. The term ‘starter marriage’ had recently come into the vernacular; it was no longer exceptional to end a union as quickly as it had come together. We had never merged our bank accounts. We didn’t own property or have kids. I hadn’t changed my name.”

The separateness of Amy’s and Marc’s lives indicates Amy’s reluctance to trust; her fears of betrayal and abandonment overwhelm the relationship. The passage also reveals Amy’s continuing search for self: She has not changed her name, the one remaining indicator of her attachment to a now-scattered family. She must reconcile that self before she can commit herself to another.

“She fell backward into the tulip bed and pulled me down with her. I felt the stems crush beneath me, petals falling on my face. Ollie threaded her fingers through mine. Twin Ophelias.”

Ollie and Amy share a moment of joy in the bed of blooming flowers—though, as usual when Ollie is involved, it is not without risk. They are on public property, and the police slowly circle back to them. Amy underscores the ever-present possibility of tragedy by comparing the sisters to “[t]win Ophelias,” a reference to Hamlet’s doomed lover in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Ophelia drowns surrounded by flowers in one of Western literature’s most famous depictions of mental illness in women.

“On some level, I had always been poised for this moment. Ollie was my first and best teacher in the art of betrayal.”

Amy’s inability to trust others derives directly from her experiences with Ollie. Here, she is responding to Courtney’s announcement that she and Marc, Amy’s ex-husband, are a couple. Amy elevates her sister’s skill to an art and compares her to a teacher—a master at duplicity.

“It wasn’t a matter of getting along. We had long since jettisoned family traditions, like sharing holidays, sending Christmas gifts, making birthday calls. Mom had claimed that we would be best friends when we grew up, which struck me as a bit ambitious. In dark moments, I wondered who would be responsible for Ollie when our parents were gone, who would claim her body if she was found dead somewhere. How was it that we never spoke about that?”

Ollie’s mental illness and subsequent absences have fractured the family unit and ruptured traditions that other siblings might have upheld after they grew up. Amy, as the younger sister, worries about Ollie’s care once her parents are gone; she is hesitant to take responsibility and also somewhat resentful, asking, “Wasn’t Ollie supposed to take care of me? The baby, the bun?” (213). The roles are reversed due to circumstances beyond either sister’s control.

“My mother would never have let such details slide. In the months and years after she died, I often saw the world through her eyes, as if I had inherited her mantle of judgment, her scoreboard in the sky. Those were the times I missed her most.”

The metaphors here serve to humanize, via gentle humor, Mom’s tendencies to judge. After her mother dies, Amy realizes how much she inherited from her mother, including her approach to perspectives on the world that are different from her own. Family, in many ways, is inescapable in the novel.

“Today the boardwalk was empty, gulls circling and crying in the cold November air. I stared at the bleached slats of the boardwalk, the closed concessions, the carcass of the Cyclone in the distance.”

Amy’s memory of when she and Josh used to visit Coney Island evinces a bleak and mournful mood that reflects her attitude toward the lost relationship. The place is devoid of people (because Josh is gone), the gulls are personified in a way that suggests they are mourning his loss (“circling and crying”), and even the Cyclone roller coaster is rendered lifeless.

“She shouldn’t trust herself! I had no idea what to tell her. She had left a trail of hurt, all in service of her restless, fevered, formidable mind. Live free, or what?—Live like the rest of us, live like me? For Ollie there seemed to be an unlimited cup of possibility, a bank of brilliant clouds against a perfect blue sky, a taut ribbon flickering in the distance.”

Even as Ollie is about to deliver her baby, Amy is unable to relinquish her long-standing (and often legitimate) resentments about Ollie’s behavior over the years. She employs a series of metaphors here to emphasize Ollie’s ability to escape responsibility and embrace possibility.

“On some level, I never stopped wishing for an idyll that had ceased to exist long ago: the four of us together. Four fortune cookies. Four fortunes. Don’t hold on to things that require a tight grip.”

Amy refers to the fortune cookie that Mom opened at the Chinese restaurant on her birthday (the same birthday when Ollie gifted Mom a stolen bracelet). Amy simultaneously mourns and yearns for her family. Now, it is only she and Ollie. She must decide if she can (or should) hold onto Ollie.