Bereft: A Sister's Story Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

Bereft: A Sister's Story Book

In 1966, when the author was 17, her 21-year-old sister, Laura, was murdered for no apparent reason by David Mumbaugh, a man she didn't even know. The girls' bereaved parents, "practical people who passed on their distrust of the intangible," made it clear that they must all "get on with their lives" without further discussion. Not until 1989, when she had two daughters of her own and found herself stuck in a troubled marriage, did Jane Bernstein pull out a folder containing 23-year-old articles describing her sister's death. This sensitive memoir chronicles her subsequent investigation into the case and weaves an account of the intervening years of college, political activism, and several abortive stints of therapy to show that Bernstein was badly damaged by Laura's loss and their parents' refusal to let her grieve. As she twice testifies against Mumbaugh's parole, arguing that he hasn't changed and is still dangerous, the author begins to realize that her violent husband won't change either. Eventually, she is able to assimilate the impact of Laura's death and to leave her spouse. Yet this is not a bitter book: Bernstein displays great compassion for her parents' inability to voice their sorrow and for her husband's inability to control his anger. Her simple, subtle prose conveys understanding, not recrimination. --Wendy Smith Read More

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  • Product Description

    Jane Bernstein was seventeen in the summer of 1966 when her adored older sister, Laura, was stabbed to death by a stranger, for no apparent reason. More than two decades later, Bernstein found her thoughts and fantasies returning insistently to the sister she'd never allowed herself to mourn. Gradually she immersed herself in the long-buried tragedy, obsessively reviewing articles and transcripts, and, like a detective herself, interviewing detectives, attorneys, and others who'd been close to her sister or involved in the case. What was she trying to solve?

    Weaving present into past with deceptive ease, Bernstein unearths uncomfortable truths about both. We come to see that the actual object of her search is her own identity, sucked under in a wake of denial after Laura's murder. Reclaiming who she was-and what Laura was to her-meant questioning every aspect of her carefully constructed adult sense of self: as a writer, a daughter, a mother, and the wife of a charismatic but unpredictable man. Passionate and disquieting, Bereft is a testament to the silent depredations of unacknowledged loss, and a tribute to our power to reclaim ourselves.

  • 0865475865
  • 9780865475861
  • Jane Bernstein
  • 1 April 2000
  • North Point Pr
  • Hardcover (Book)
  • 279
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