Shred Sisters

Shred Sisters spans roughly two decades in the Shred family’s life, from the 1970s to the 1990s, and it situates the reader by providing social and historical signposts. For example, there are references to popular culture sprinkled throughout the book, from the 1970s self-help sensation What Color Is Your Parachute? to the legendary punk-rock club CBGBs to the 1986 hit that launched a movie star’s career, Top Gun. These references, along with brief but important asides about social expectations, provide context about the time and place in which these sisters come of age. Betsy Lerner’s novel invites the reader not only to empathize with a family affected by mental illness but also to take a journey through the latter part of the 20th century, with all its cultural touchstones and social anxieties.

Though only touched on obliquely in the novel, many of those anxieties surrounded the then-ongoing Cold War and the shifting international relations involved in it. For example, when the Shreds plan a visit to Washington, DC, Amy is most excited about seeing the pandas Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, gifts from China in an act of diplomacy following President Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit. The visit was the first by a US president since China’s establishment of a communist government in the 1940s, yet it was driven less by any ideological softening toward communism and more by hostility toward the Soviet Union; the US hoped to improve its own international standing by deepening a growing division between China and the Soviet Union. For the Shreds, however, global political affairs are distant concerns at best, with the Washington, DC, vacation ultimately centering around Ollie, who, unenthusiastic about any of the planned activities, ultimately derails the trip with her actions. What Amy calls Dad’s planned “pilgrimage”—a family trip elevated to a sacred journey of discovery—thus reverberates with irony: The family is both connected to the larger socio-historical events around them and deeply disconnected from those experiences because of their personal circumstances.

Much of the novel also takes place against the backdrop of second-wave feminism, a social movement that began in the 1960s and spotlighted women’s reproductive rights and ability to work outside the home, among other issues. Second-wave feminism also coincided with the sexual revolution of the 1960s, when social acceptance of sex outside heterosexual marriage became more common. However, attitudes toward both women’s rights and sexual liberation did not change overnight, and the 1970s also witnessed the beginning of a backlash to both movements. Thus, gender roles remain a prominent force in Shred Sisters. 

For example, Mom fears that Ollie’s talent for track and field will render her less feminine, while Dad maintains the role (implied to be somewhat outdated even at the time) of patriarchal protector, especially with regard to Ollie. Amy internalizes the social pressure to marry, intensified by the likelihood that her older sister will never settle down: “Marc had said more than once that he wanted to have a family. He thought we should move in together, hinted about sizing his grandmother’s ring. I wanted to wait; it hadn’t been quite a year. I was also falling in love with my new career” (146). Marc and her mother both encourage Amy to accept the impending marriage as if it were an unavoidable vocation, more significant than her pursuit of professional success. However, Amy has her doubts, which are enhanced by running into Josh, her old boyfriend: “I was embarrassed by how safe it seemed. I feared he would judge me for being conventional” (162). Part of Amy’s journey into maturity is to separate her own sense of self from the often-gendered social expectations placed upon her. In contrast to the wives she encounters (and mostly avoids) in Marc’s upper-middle-class social circle, she does not want to quit her job and start a family. While Shred Sisters ends with a marriage, it is not the protagonist who speaks the vows. Instead, what Amy pledges to do is put trust in herself—a reflection not only of her own character growth but also of a generation of women who increasingly rejected the expectations that their parents had been subject to.