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From the headlines

April 28th, 2009 Lisa - Central

I’m not a person who is fascinated by creepy news stories - celebrity trials, serial killers, mass murders - I don’t want to know about any of it.  So I can’t explain why I was attracted to one of Joyce Carol Oates‘ latest novels, My Sister, My Love: The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampike. It’s a story based on the life and murder of JonBenet Ramsey, the six-year-old beauty queen who was murdered in her own house, and whose killer was never found.

In this novel the Rampikes live in New Jersey.  “Bix,” a tireless skirt chaser, is climbing up the corporate ladder in a bioengineering firm; Betsey is a desperate social climber who keeps lists of the families she longs to be associated with in her upperclass neighborhood.  She uses her children in her attempts to elevate her social status; first she pushes oldest child Skylar into gymnastics against his will, until an accident sidelines him.  Next, when Edna Louise show promise as an ice skater, Betsey shunts Skyler aside and focuses obsessively on “Bliss” (Edna Louise’s skating name, delivered to Betsey by God).

Soon Bliss, with her dyed hair, ‘tasteful’ makeup, and provocative outfits, is winning skating competitions and her fame is spread beyond her neighborhood.  The family environment becomes more toxic than ever; the children are medicated for syndromes you’ve never heard of to keep them under tight control.  Bix is never around, and neither is Betsey, for that matter, as far as Sky is concerned.  Poor little Bliss, transformed into a skating automaton, loves to skate, but is petrified that she will fall, and skates despite pain and injury.  But then she’s murdered.

Sky narrates the story from 10 years later, when he is 19.  He hasn’t lived with his parents since the murder, having been shipped off to a variety of private schools that protect the privacy of scandalized families.  He survived his toxic family, but barely - he’s emotionally scarred and barely cleaned of his drug addiction.  His cynical, grief-and guilt-laden voice transmits the pain he has endured all these years.  His impressions of his family life from the viewpoint of a 9-year-old boy, his confusion over what happened on the night of the murder, and his painful forced separation from his parents sear into your heart.  Oates’ commentary on our neurotic, fame and wealth obsessed society is spot on.

But the novel was overlong and could have used some editting (How can little ol’ me say that about JCO?!)  The first 100 pages of this novel were gripping and compelling, but then the book seemed to wither under the repetitious cynicism of Skyler’s voice, the intrusion of footnotes, and the occasional stylistic tricks (eg. a story within the story).  Having said that, it is a novel that has stuck with me for a while.  It’s gotten many “starred” reviews from critics, and you can’t help but feel compassion and distress for Sky and his horrible aloneness.  Finally, Oates gives us a resolution to the murder, which doesn’t exist for the JonBenet Ramsey case.  You decide.

Entry Filed under: Literary Fiction