Shred Sisters

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussion of mental illness.

While the Shred family does not spend an inordinate amount of time at the Running Brook Country Club, it becomes emblematic not only of the sisters’ differences—Ollie dislikes the country club for its rules and protocols, whereas Amy finds comfort in its rituals, highlighting the Sisters as Opposites and Mirror Images—but also of the Shreds’ class aspirations. They are not extremely wealthy, though they are privileged, making their way into the upper middle class by dint of Dad’s growing home design business. This motif of money and status explores the expectations surrounding socioeconomic status at a certain time and place (white, wealthy, late-20th-century circles), as well as the concomitant desire to belong.

Ollie chafes against these expectations until later in life. As a teenager, she “start[s] shopping at Goodwill and thrift shops” (24), expressly motivated by a desire to unsettle her mother, who “[cannot] understand why anyone would buy used clothes when they could afford new ones” (24). In this way, Ollie protests against her mother’s middle-class values. For Amy, in contrast, social striving becomes a way she can fit in—something that does not come easily to her. At private school to which she is sent, its “ivy-covered brick buildings, the quad where kids play[] hacky sack, [and] the clusters of study groups dotting the perimeter” are indicators of “a miniature college” (66), as Mom puts it. The fact that Amy thrives here (and that her parents can afford its fees) seems to imply that she belongs there, although the novel will later highlight what Amy has lost in her quest for conventional “success” (marriage, a prestigious career, etc.). The school also stands in stark contrast to the hospital where Ollie is sent around the same time, further highlighting the sisters’ differences.

Other indicators of class pepper the narrative. Dad lives in a gated community down in Florida after he remarries, and he and his wife both drive BMWs. Ollie steals from high-end retail stores, rather than chains; later, Ollie lives in Beverly Hills in a small mansion replete with servants. Amy herself occupies a rarefied world of privilege when she marries Marc, an up-and-coming lawyer: Their engagement party is held at the Princeton Club, and the couple is showered with gifts, “many in Tiffany’s robin’s-egg-blue boxes” (158). This class consciousness serves to both highlight the privilege that the Shred family enjoys and expose why they become so bewildered by Ollie’s mental illness. It is a problem that cannot be solved with money.