Bereft: A Sister's Story

by Jane Bernstein

Reflecting on the murder of her sister many years earlier, the author embarks on a journey to uncover everything she can about the crime, including the motive, which is strangely absent from her recollections. Reprint.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, True Crime

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Jane Bernstein's new novel, The Face Tells the Secret, was published by Regal House in the fall of 2019. She is the author of five previous books, among them the memoirs Bereft - A Sister's Story, and Rachel in the World. Jane is a lapsed screenwriter and an essayist whose work has been widely published in such places as Creative Nonfiction, The Sun, and the New York Times Magazine. In 2018, her essay “Still Running” was chosen for Best American Sports Writing 2018, and Gina from Siberia, a picture book she wrote with her daughter Charlotte Glynn was published. Her grants and awards include two National Endowment Fellowships in Creative Writing and a Fulbright Fellowship. She is a professor of English and a member of the Creative Writing Program at Carnegie Mellon University." Visit www.janebernstein.net to read some of her shorter work.

Reviews

[Riley · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Disclaimer: Jane Bernstein was a professor of mine. She intimidated the heck out of me at first, but she quickly grew to be someone I respected and adored, and even considered a friend. I never read her books while taking her classes because I didn't want to be influenced by them in any way, or violate her privacy since she mostly writes creative nonfiction, but now that I've graduated, I'm so, so glad I can finally check out her work.)

I read this book quickly, as it is written in a quietly compelling voice and tells an interesting, well-woven story. I doubt if there are many women who couldn't find something to identify with in this story. From losing a sister to a senseless murder, to living with a tough (but loving) Jewish mother, to marrying a volatile man, to giving birth to two daughters, one with disabilities, Jane has lived through an incredible number of challenges in her life. She dealt with some more easily and gracefully than others, but all of them left their mark. Whatever admiration I had for her before has increased tenfold after (a) reading her story, her struggle to reclaim herself and allow herself to really feel her own emotions, and (b) reading her tightly crafted prose, in which no word is wasted yet poetry can still be found.

If I'm being perfectly honest, my interest lagged slightly near the middle of the book, but that was brief, maybe like 20 pages or less. The rest is beautiful and heartbreaking and heroic, and I loved it. I openly teared up on the plane as I read the ending. I was hoping someone would ask me if I was okay, so I could answer, "Oh yes, I'm fine, I'm just reading a wonderful book by an amazing woman. You really ought to check it out."

Please see my post at iluv2read for favorite passages.

[Michelle Hannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This poignant memoir follows Jane’s struggle to deal with her sister’s murder. The trauma occurred when Jane was in high school, and it was decades later before she finally started dealing with it. It is insightful, honest, and raw, and explained a lot to me about my own dealings with a childhood trauma. It takes strength and courage to put it all out there and write a book like this. I am grateful to Jane for sharing her story so that others might understand and maybe even start to heal.

[Tabitha Blankenbiller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bernstein’s memoir, following her life after her sister’s murder, simmers slowly beneath the surface. Although she leads into the book with the main “event,” the night her sister was killed, Bernstein does not misuse the moment’s power. She relays what occurred in a subdued manner with heartbreaking details, such as her mother’s words after the fateful phone call: “Our baby is dead.” The immediate aftermath is recounted in fragments and surreal moments instead of sweeping emotions, such as describing how she wondered what to wear as the dead girl’s sister the day after. By “writing cool” during these terrible scenes, she emphasizes the humanity of her story. As she goes on in the memoir to write about her life as an adult in the murder’s shadow, she allows the reader to see the reverberations of the trauma influencing the rest of her life without blatantly calling them out. This trust in the power of the writing, along with the confidence in her readers, lends the book its exceptional power. After putting it down I was still thinking about the scenes of her life and how the distress colored them. Bereft is an excellent study in the power of understatement in memoir.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was really moved by this book...I could truly understand Jane's dissatisfaction with her life, and her inability to shed her sadness and feeling that she did not deserve happiness. Because she was unable (not allowed) to REALLY grieve the loss of her sister, her anguish manifested itself in other self destructive ways. Honestly, how can parents be so incapable of seeing when they are damaging a child (as in this case), and to a great extent causing the problems that confront (and frustrate) them? What made this story so satisfying to me is Bernstein's decision to learn the entire story related to her sister's death & to finally grieve her properly. This then allowed her to assess the brokenness of her abusive marriage, leave it, and come to a point where she was no longer harboring hatred & anger toward her husband. What a testimony this is to following through with a commitment to repair a broken life.

[Krissy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was pretty good, even though it took me awhile to get through it. It's about a young woman whose sister is murdered when she goes away to college, and at first, the woman pretty much just moves on with her life instead of grieving properly. She ends up getting married and having two daughters, and her husband is verbally abusive and a little bit physically abusive. She starts to realize that maybe she has issues going back to her sister's murder, so she starts writing about her sister's murder and goes back to interview the cops and stuff, and she even goes to visit the young guy who murdered the sister. Eventually she ends up leaving her husband and getting a really good job. It's basically about how she survived through it and came out ahead. Good book and very sad, but it does take awhile to get through all the details.

[Debra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary--powerful. This book is beautifully crafted and gets right to the heart of loss. I couldn't stop reading, though the situation is so very sad.

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have a heart, you'll like this book. My god, I loved reading it. This memoir was compelling, moving and impeccably written. After reading thisI feel inspired to try my hand at CNF again.

[Dulcey Heller]

Aug 07