Savannah, it turns out, is catatonic, and before the suicide attempt had completely assumed the identity of a dead friend-the implication being that she couldn't stand being a Wingo anymore. When he hears that his fierce, beautiful twin sister Savannah, a well-known New York poet, has once again attempted suicide, he escapes his present emasculation by flying north to meet Savannah's comely psychiatrist, Susan Lowenstein. Tom Wingo is an unemployed South Carolinian football coach whose internist wife is having an affair with a pompous cardiac man. Quite an achievement.Ī flabby, fervid melodrama of a high-strung Southern family from Conroy ( The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline), whose penchant for overwriting once again obscures a genuine talent. Lansens has created a richly nuanced, totally believable sibling relationship between two small-town girls in a community filled with lively haracters.Īn unsentimental, heartwarming page-turner. That bit of melodrama aside, the novel’s power lies in the wonderful narrative voices of Rose and Ruby. Having given the baby up for adoption, Rose now yearns to find her. Rose also has difficulty discussing the baby she conceived with a local boy who kissed Ruby’s lips while impregnating Rose’s body. Rose leaves it to Ruby to mention the crucial fact that the sisters are dying from a brain tumor. Although Rose often describes Ruby as a stereotypical “shallow pretty sister” (except most such sisters are not conjoined with misshapen bodies or heads), we gradually learn that Ruby is more than a pretty face and has in fact gathered a museum-quality collection of Indian artifacts. Rose tells the dramatic story of their birth on the day a tornado touched down, of their mother who immediately abandoned them and of the saintly but colorful local nurse Lovey and her dashing but kindly husband Stash who adopted them. Rose, who loves literature but passed up college because Ruby would not attend, has decided to write her own autobiography, offering to let Ruby compose her own chapters.
As the novel opens, they are approaching their 30th birthday.
They even have separate jobs at the local library. The twins have separate brains, separate personalities and interests. Ruby’s face is lovely, but because her legs never fully formed, Rose must carry her.
Rose, who tells most of the story, was born with a normal body but with her face pulled out of shape.
Ruby and Rose Darlen are joined side by side at the head. Lansens ( Rush Home Road, 2002) overcomes the inherent “ick” factor in this surprisingly moving story of conjoined twins in a small Canadian community.
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