The Middle Sister: A Novel

Very touching story.

Decided to order on line though not familiar with author. satisfied with online presentation it was a good description and it was a good guide.

I loved this novel. Glover uses the gritty setting of black American urban culture to portray a very human and universal story of growing up, facing challenges, and taking bittersweet leave of childhood things. I found the cultural aspects very interesting - I like learning about environments and settings I know very little of (I grew up and live in Asia), and this added immensely to the books appeal- but I reckon this is no more a black American story than, say, Heart of Darkness is a travelogue about a group of men going up an African river. Told from the appealing and genuine first person voice of Pamela, the middle of three sisters, its really about family, and as in all great novels, the immensely engaging characters, while grounded in the setting (and necessarily so), transcend the setting to speak to everybody. The story unfolds naturally and organically and authentically-nothing is forced, no shoe-horned happy ending, but the ending is deeply satisfying nonetheless. The novel deserves to bust through to a wide readership.

When Pamelas father leaves their home in Brooklyn in the `70s, he leaves a family of deeply injured women--a wife who slips into madness and three daughters who hide their anguish and loss deep in their souls. They are forced by their altered economics to leave their shabby but beloved house in East New York and move into the projects, and the girls lives change irrevocably. In doing what each must to do to survive, Pamela and her sisters Nona and Theresa forge a new and vital strength in their re-defined family. This is a story of making human connections in spite of the pain of a difficult life, and Glover tells it deftly, lovingly and not without humor. She paints her characters completely, yet without a stray detail; they are as natural and believable as their Brooklyn Black dialect. Susan ONeill, Author:

Good story. I guess I was looking for pammy to do more with her life in the end than becoming a mistress.

The middle sister instantly brought back my own memories of growing up in Brooklyn during the 1970s. It was well written and the characters made you identify with them immediately. Excellent first novel.

I just got this book, and Im already almost done. Its not long and drawn out, or boring. Im really enjoying it.