After two years, Ollie is discharged, unchanged, and disappears for even longer stretches. Drained of energy for each other, the Shred parents, Amy says, “split slowly, like the subterranean forces that pulled apart the jagged coasts of South America and Africa.”
As she did in The Bridge Ladies, Lerner elevates what may sound like yet another pop saga of endurance, measured recovery and forgiveness into a closely observed story that’s ragged and wry. The final two-thirds of this novel focus on Amy herself — the usher in the shadows who’s spent decades powerlessly observing and cleaning up after this family movie.
Change, as we know, is hard; but, there’s a moment where the adult Amy, who’s been demoralized by loneliness and career failure, spontaneously walks into a hair salon. She’s pulled in by a sign that reads: “Never give up on your hair.”
These are the kind of revelatory ordinary human moments Lerner captures with precision. As an affirmation, “Never give up on your hair” turns out to be a more modest way to declare, “I will survive.”
‘Shred Sisters’ by Betsy Lerner is out now, via Grove Press.