Synopses & Reviews
“Weve been called many things: freaks, horrors, monsters, devils, witches, retards, wonders, marvels. To most, were a curiosity. In small-town Leaford, where we live and work, were just ‘The Girls.”Rose and Ruby Darlen are closer than most twin sisters. Indeed, they have spent their twenty-nine years on earth joined at the head. Given that they share a web of essential veins, there is no possibility that they can be separated in their lifetime.
Born in a small town in the midst of a tornado, the sisters are abandoned by their frightened teenaged mother and create a circus-like stir in the medical community. The attending nurse, however, sees their true beauty and decides to adopt them. Aunt Lovey is a warm-hearted, no-nonsense woman married to a gentle immigrant butcher, Uncle Stash. The middle-aged couple moves to a farm where the girls - “not hidden but unseen” - can live as normal a life as possible.
For identical twins, Rose and Ruby are remarkably different both on the inside and out. Ruby has a beautiful face whereas Roses features are, in her own words, “misshapen and frankly grotesque.” And whereas Roses body is fully formed, Rubys bottom half is dwarfish - with her tiny thighs resting on Roses hip, she must be carried around like a small child or doll. The differences in their tastes are no less distinct. A poet and avid reader, Rose is also huge sports fan. Ruby, on the other hand, would sooner watch television than crack open a book - that is, anything but sports. They are rarely ready for bed at the same time and whereas Rose loves spicy food, Ruby has a “disturbing fondness for eggs.”
On the eve of their thirtieth birthday, Rose sets out to write her autobiography. But because their lives have been so closely shared, Ruby insists on contributing the occasional chapter. And so, as Rose types away on her laptop, the technophobic Ruby scribbles longhand on a yellow legal pad. Theyve established one rule for their co-writing venture: neither is allowed to see what the other has written. Together, they tell the story of their lives as the worlds oldest surviving craniopagus twins - the literary Rose and straight-talking Ruby often seeing the same event in wildly different ways. Despite their extreme medical condition, the sisters express emotional truths that every reader will identify with: on losing a loved one, the hard lessons of compromise, the first stirrings of sexual desire, the pain of abandonment, and the transcendent power of love.
Rose and Ruby Darlen of Baldoon County, Ontario, are two of the most extraordinary and unforgettable characters to spring into our literature. As Kirkus Reviews puts it, “The novel's power lies in the wonderful narrative voices of Rose and Ruby. Lansens has created a richly nuanced, totally believable sibling relationship... An unsentimental, heartwarming page-turner.” The National Post writes: “Lansenss beautiful writing is so detailed that it is often easy to forget that the material is not based on a true story. She captures what it would be like never to sleep, bathe, go for a walk, or meet friends on your own.”
About the Author
Before becoming a novelist, Lori Lansens was a successful screenwriter whose film credits include
South of Wawa and
Marine Life.
Rush Home Road, her first novel, was shortlisted for both the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book and Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. A
Globe 100 Best Book of the Year and national bestseller, it has been translated into eight languages and published in eleven countries.
Lansens’s second novel, The Girls, was shortlisted for the Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Award for Fiction Book of the Year. As with Rush Home Road, The Girls has been published to rave reviews around the world. In an interview with CBC, Lansens explains how she drew on her own experience of pregnancy and nursing to depict the main characters’ interdependency as conjoined twins: “Writing The Girls, I was breast-feeding my first child, and then I was pregnant and nursing my second. I had gone from being a writer who spent 10 hours a day alone with my computer to being a parent who was either holding a child, or nursing a child or sleeping with a child. I was never alone. Suddenly, I was constantly physically attached to another person in a vital way. Of course, it’s not the same thing as being conjoined, but that experience was my way in.” She adds: “My husband calls me a ‘method writer,’ and I lived that intimacy and dependency every day of writing. When I wrote Ruby, I could literally feel Rose beside me. When I wrote Rose, I could feel Ruby.”
Born and raised in Chatham, Ontario, where both Rush Home Road and The Girls are set, Lori Lansens now makes her home in Toronto.
Reading Group Guide
1. Rose begins her autobiography with a list of things she has never experienced. How does she revise this list in the final chapter - and what does the revised passage reveal about how she has evolved over the course of the novel?
2. As a fictionalized autobiography, The Girls offers many insights into the art of the memoir. What challenges does Rose encounter while writing - and how does she deal with them? Consider, for instance, her decision to write the book chronologically.
3. Throughout your reading, did you ever have to remind yourself that The Girls is a novel as opposed to an actual memoir?
4. Ruby innocently reveals information that Rose is either withholding or simply hasnt broached yet. What impact did these revelations have on you? How would you describe the sisters respective writing styles?
5. The novel contains many comic moments. Which scenes stand out for you as most amusing?
6. The Girls has been described as ultimately optimistic. What role does hope play in the story? How do the girls triumph over their situation? What role does Aunt Lovey play in helping them to become strong, both emotionally and physically?
7. “Weve been called many things: freaks, horrors, monsters, devils, witches, retards, wonders, marvels…In small-town Leaford, where we live and work, were just ‘The Girls.” What role does language play in the novel with respect to naming and labeling?
8. Aunt Lovey and Uncle Stash are deeply committed to one another and very much in love. How do you understand Uncle Stashs infidelity in this context?
9. The novel is set near the Windsor-Detroit border, where the Ambassador Bridge joins Canada and the U.S. Does the novels setting have metaphorical significance in your view?
10. Rose writes: “There is some alienation, of course, in being so different, but its also been fascinating, and a unique opportunity, I think, to have observed our generation without fully participating in it.” Besides Rose and Ruby, who else might be considered an outsider in the novel?
11. The Girls contains numerous parallels and symmetries. For example, both Rose and her daughter will never know their birth mother. What other parallels and symmetries - in terms of plot, character and setting - caught your attention?
12. How did you respond to the scene with Frankie Foyle? Were you curious about the sisters sexuality before you reached this chapter? What other aspects of conjoinment fascinated you or helped you to see the world differently?
13. Discuss the various mother figures that appear in The Girls.
14. How did you feel about the ending - in particular, not knowing precisely what happens to the sisters?
15. Imagine that you were a neighbour or co-worker of Ruby and Rose. Which sister do you think youd get along with better?
Author Q&A
What inspired you to write this particular book? Is there a story about the writing of this novel that begs to be told?Like many people I'm interested in twins. I became fascinated with the subject of conjoined twins when I was doing research for an unrelated writing project (a screenplay) a few years ago. I became even more intrigued when I was following the story of Iranian craniopagus twins, the Bijani girls, who, nearly thirty years old, decided upon risky surgery to separate them. Both women died on the operating table, after expressing how they longed to look into each other's eyes. (They were joined at the side of the head and could only see each other in mirrors.) There's no question that I was inspired reading about real-life conjoined twins but the more personal connection to the story came from an unusual source – my two very young children. There was a time, not so long ago, shortly before and during the writing of Rose and Ruby's story, that I had an intense physical attachment to my children. It seemed as though I had a child attached to my hip, my breast, or my lap at all times. I thought a great deal about the nature of connection and intimacy and the way people share their lives. My deep connection to my children was a jumping off place for the writing of The Girls.
What is it that you're exploring in this book?
The Girls is a story about a most profound kind of intimacy, an exploration of love in all its many forms. It's also an examination of story-telling and narrative perspective.
Any favourite characters?
Naturally Rose and Ruby are my favourite characters but I love Aunt Lovey and Uncle Stash too. I wanted to give the girls the best parents possible and I think I found them in Lovey and Stash. Aunt Lovey, in particular, who raises the girls to shun pity in themselves and others, and who wants more for Rose and Ruby than mere survival. There are obvious parallels in the Darlen's marital relationship and the girls’ sibling relationship. Neither pair can live with the other.
What type of research did you do before you started writing?
I did a great deal of research before and while I was writing including research on conjoined twins in history, medical research, details about the Neutral Indians in Southwestern Ontario, sports trivia. The incidence of conjoinment is rarer than most people think. There are very few conjoined twins in history or currently living (together) in the world, so there was little I could read in the way of biography or testimony. I felt a responsibility to stay away from learning too much about any living conjoined twins so there would be no risk of confusing fact with fiction and no fear of exploiting any living person. (That is also why I chose not to contact or interview any conjoined twins.) What I did discover from all I read was that every pair of twins was completely different. The twins were different both as individuals and in their situation of conjoinment, depending on the nature of their anatomies, their particular restrictions, their culture and geography, and even their personalities. Realizing early on in the process that there was no typical experience for any pair of conjoined twins was liberating to me as a writer. I felt confident to approach The Girls as a work of imagination.
Are there any tips you would give a book club to better navigate their discussion of your book?
I think the book is unusual because of the narrative structure and it's been wonderful to hear from readers the many interpretations of Rose and Ruby and the different perspectives on their lives. I think it's interesting to look at their lives in terms of the discrepancies and contradictions in the telling of the their individual stories. Rose and Ruby define themselves by what they've written about themselves and each other. Or, maybe more by what they haven't written.
Do you have a favourite story to tell about being interviewed about your book?
My favourite interview, and I remember each moment of it, was my first interview for the book with Susan G. Cole from NOW magazine. She asked such thoughtful questions, and I loved the way she talked about the characters and the story. It was a pleasure for me to answer questions that were then so fresh and new.
What question have you never been asked in an interview but wish you were?
I can't think of a thing I haven't been asked. But the three questions that are almost always asked in interviews are 1. Have you interviewed any conjoined twins? 2. Are you a twin? 3. Do you have a sister? The answers, in short, are – no and no and no.
What has the response been stateside to your novels? Do you have an interesting story about the difference in reader or media reaction to your work?
As I write, the book has yet to be launched in America. That being said there has already been huge interest and lots of nice advance reviews. The book has been sold to 8 countries outside of North America and I'm pleased to think of people around the world getting to know Rose and Ruby. I think it will be interesting to see how people from different cultures respond to a story about very unusual twins.
How did the experience of writing your second novel differ from your first?
My first novel, Rush Home Road, was finished just days before I gave birth to my first child. I wrote most of it during the pregnancy. I was able to write for very long days and often wrote seven days a week. I had the sense of the story pouring out – that my fingers could barely keep up with the narrator.
The Girls was a greater challenge, practically speaking, because when I began to write it I had an infant and a toddler and a husband frequently working out of town. I approached the writing of the second story more methodically, and in a very workman-like way. Like Rose Darlen, I put aside a number of hours a day to write, then set daily, weekly, and monthly goals. Of course, like any working mom, I struggled with the balance of work and family.
What are you working on now?
I have yet to set pen to paper (or finger to key) but feel a story spinning involving two characters who face an enormous mid-life change. (I'm in the process of relocating my family to the suburbs of Los Angeles after having lived in downtown Toronto for the past 22 years.) I think that this move will be reflected somehow in my next book.