cover image Henry's Sisters

Henry's Sisters

Cathy Lamb, . . Kensington, $15 (352pp) ISBN 978-0-7582-2954-0

When the Bommarito sisters, Isabelle and Janie, hear that their domineering mother is going in for open heart surgery, they must forget the trauma of their childhood and return to their riverside Oregon hometown, Trillium River. Taking care of their mother and their demented grandmother (who believes she's Amelia Earhart) and watching after their mentally handicapped brother, Henry (possessed of an almost saintly, unconditional love for people), the independent sisters try to find a place in the world they've left behind. Lamb (The Last Time I Was Me ) delivers grace, humor and forgiveness along with a litany of family trauma, which might seem heavy-handed in lesser hands. Fortunately, this finely pitched family melodrama is balanced with enough gallows humor and idiosyncratic characters to make it positively irresistible. (Aug.)