The Girls (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
Books / Paperback
ISBN: 0345441125 / Publisher: Ballantine Books, November 2000
Four sisters ages 80 to 95 struggle against the privations of growing old to keep love and humor alive, in this tale of life in a Florida retirement community.
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The youngest of four sisters, a noted New York writer and critic, eighty-year-old Jenny has flown to Miami Beach to help her flamboyant sister Flora (the Sandra Bernhardt of the senior set) deal with their ailing older siblings. Eva, ninety-five, is still elegant and articulate: "They come if it's convenient," she ventures between wine toasts to her continuing years. Naomi is ever a beauty at ninety--and as vain as they come: "He's crazy about me, but I just brush him off." Despite their fragile bodies, they are women to be reckoned with--and Jenny and Flora have their hands full. As they strive to keep their sisters comfortable and cared for, an explosive history of sibling rivalry is reignited--one that illuminates each of their long lives, the tender joys and sorrows, and the bittersweet ache for life, especially in its twilight years. . . .
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