With novel number three, Julia Glass has found a permanent place on my book-case. It’s not top shelf, but it’s close, and it’s certainly not bottom. That’s reserved for the Ginger’s gardening books and guides for places we’re never going.
In the novel I See You Everywhere, Julia paints a double portrait of sisters Louisa and Clem Jardine, starting in 1980 and finishing in 2005. Louisa is the older sister. She’s more conventional, more careful, although still drifting slightly off-course in the eventual direction of marriage and motherhood. Clem is the wild young rebel, irresistible to men about whom she doesn’t care to commit and following her nose in search of the best wildlife biologist gig and the biggest adrenalin rush. She would be quite annoying to have as a younger sister if you ask me, although she’s not doing it on purpose, she’s just made that way.
I guess the fact is that these two girls/women who share the exact same bloodlines don’t necessarily share much else. Pivotal moments in their lives bring them together over the years under Julia Glass’ expert guidance so the reader catches snapshots of who’s doing what to whom and how often. I like this device because it covers a huge amount of ground and allows the reader to see from a distance exactly how the small picture becomes the big picture.
What I struggled with at first, however, was knowing which sister was speaking to me. Louisa and Clem take turns at narrating and because they’re not doing it in separate chapters, it’s sometimes a little hard to follow. But, if you love books that shine a light on complicated family relationships, it is worth persevering over this hump because the end result is truly satisfying, among other things.
Turns out a lot of the pivotal moments are based on similar true incidents from Julia Glass’ own life, which no doubt accounts for such an up-close-and-personal account of sisterhood, in all its wonderful, terrible, heartbreaking glory.
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