The Wartime Sisters

As we follow the relationship between two sisters, who have grown up in Brooklyn, NY we are educated about the the war years in Springfield, MA.  It is interesting to learn that there was a very active Amory and busy munitions plant.  This is a great story of two sisters, the older one serious and studious, the younger, pretty and social.  The secrets they have kept from each other make interactions tense when, now, years later they move in together in Springfield and build lives during the Great War.

Again author, Lynda Cohen Loigman, has found a little known piece of history from World War II and used that as the backdrop for a fascinating novel.  She has found a way to share a part of the United States history of what was happening in Springfield, MA to help the war effort and weave a story of complicated, entangled family dynamics into the history lesson.

Ruth and her younger sister, Millie are the daughters of Jewish parents living in Brooklyn, NY.  Their mother has from Ruth’s perspective played favorites as a parent and Millie was the favored daughter, young pretty and social.  Ruth was the bookish, studious older sister and has always resented her sister.  As adults they have become estranged until the war brings them back together.  Ruth is living in SPringfield with her husband and two daughters, in officer housing.  Millie has lead a very different existence and she shows up needing help for herself and her young son.  Her husband is gone.  As the sisters work through the burdens of sibling rivalry they have carried all their lives, they are also trying to bring up their families and live during war times.

This author is also not afraid to bring out the many different dynamics that affect every family and maybe more pronounced in families living in close conditions and with the added pressures of the Army.  Loigman writes about wife batterers, drinking problems and promiscuity.   She shows how families, both wealthy and struggling, seemly happy and successful to the outside world can be wrestling with problems they keep hidden.

Beautifully written and emotionally engaging.