Our Sister Who Will Not Die: Stories

by Rebecca Bernard

A man recently released from prison returns to the dating scene and struggles to find the right time to reveal his long-past murder conviction. A grieving mother considers her own role in her son’s death. A boy enables the destructive addiction of the person he’s in love with. A dog, witness to his owner’s violent acts, begins to sweat. Each story in Rebecca Bernard’s Our Sister Who Will Not Die brings the reader face to face with the frailties of human character―and demonstrates how the yearning for love and connection allows beauty and resilience to emerge from darkness. In questioning traditional formulations of good and evil, Bernard’s stories ask us to recognize our own culpabilities and acknowledge our shared humanity. None of us is the worst thing we’ve ever done, these stories compel us to believe. Hope is always worth letting in.

248 pages, Paperback

Published August 26, 2022

Reviews

[amanda abel · Rating 5 out of 5]

When you look at the cover of this book, you know that there will be darkness inside. The colors are like a gorgeous sunset, and the statue has its head thrown back gazing at the sky, but the clutching hands and crumbling stone foretell a battle ahead. The first story in this collection contains, to me, some of the greatest domestic anguish imaginable. Rebecca’s bravery in starting with such an intense piece is a kind of sink or swim moment for the reader; you have to give in, let yourself be carried by the waves, and trust that she is leading you somewhere worthy. This whole collection is like an experiment in empathy. One of my favorite writers, AM Homes, is gifted at this, like Rebecca. They both have the ability to translate the interior experience of people who others would reduce to stereotypes of violence and immorality, allowing the reader to instead see them as human. That, to me, is one of Rebecca’s true gifts. The way she inhabits and presents these characters’ minds and lives so that the reader understands their logic, their transgressions, their need for connection and love, and how so often humans fail at expressing and fulfilling those needs in healthy ways. I think it would be easy to say that each of these stories has a seedy underbelly, but what’s most surprising about them is that it doesn’t stop there—beyond the seedy underbelly is a kind of hope, a striving, a sense of shared humanity. Ultimately, that is what this story collection is about, what we humans do for the sake of or in the absence of meaningful human connection.

[Katie · Rating 3.5 out of 5]

3.5 stars. On a content-level, all of these stories are very successful: they're simultaneously empathetic and discomforting in the way good (short) fiction often is. On a language level, however, I found them to be a bit of a mixed bag. While I enjoyed the variation between the narrators' voices, some of them were too melodramatic for me, sometimes veering into the ridiculous. I like purple prose when done well – ornate but precise and perceptive –, but not when it becomes a tight string of fancy-ish nouns bound by diffuse associations, like in "Our Daughters Whose Blood." In contrast, I loved the wonderfully bare and naive narration in "The Pleasures of Television" – the best story in the collection, in my opinion, and the only one I had read before. (My favorite of Rebecca Bernard's remains "Wig Shop," unfortunately not featured in this collection.) Other favorites from this volume include "A Most Pathetic and Confused Creature" and "Gardening," a very satisfying closer.

[Eva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to @ohiostatepress for a copy of Our Sister Who Will Not Die.

This compilation of short stories share the common theme of hope but with a twist. The stories deal with the worst sides of ourselves and ask if our transgressions deem our humanity. Whether it be adultery, murder, pedophilic urges, loneliness, loss, mental illness or domestic violence, the author has written stories that tackle these topics head on. She doesn’t shy away from the discomfort.

While I did feel that I was wanting more with some of the stories, overall I did enjoy the book as a whole. This isn’t necessarily a negative. In one story in particular, I finished the piece and wanted to know more about the main character and if he told his date something and what happened afterwards.

Our Sister Who Will Not Die is published August 26, 2022.

[Ramona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterful collection centering on sometimes difficult characters, situations, or both—all of which are approached with humanity and a keen, unflinching eye. These stories asks us to see beyond appearances and perhaps to examine our own judgments. The courage Bernard exhibits in taking on heavy subjects, such as murder, pedophilia, and addiction, as well as delving into the POVs of characters with unsettling pasts, certainly makes her a fiction writer to watch. Impressive!

[Jennifer Dowling · Rating 5 out of 5]

The raw honesty of these stories is beautiful, uncomfortable, naked and complex. I ached for the author’s complicated characters and their messy, ordinary, cruel lives. A brilliant read.