The Almost Archer Sisters

Lickey Road, Rednal, Birmingham, 19.12.2010

The Almost Archer Sisters was the Sherwood Book Club title for 4th January 2011. As we are talking a Canadian book here, the title was not available in my local library and I went out and bought it online. I am really grateful for this aspect of the worldwide connectivity. Delivery of the book should have been straight forward, but a bit of snow fell on Britain and postal services came to a standstill. Beautiful, crisp and clear these snowy days were - wonderful altogether. On Christmas Eve the parcel finally made it through my letterbox. 

I am open to reading any book suggested by the librarian, and having done some research, the story looked interesting and modern. Here is a short summary of the plot:

❝Georgia “Peachy" Archer Laliberte has almost gotten her life under control. Peachy, her husband Beau, and their two rambunctious sons live on the family farm in a small town in Canada, just across the border from the U.S.. Their closest neighbor is Peachy’s draft-dodging hairdresser father, Lou, who lives in a trailer on their land. Although her son Sam has epilepsy, Peachy, Beau, and Lou have worked out a successful system to care for him and maintain as normal a family life as possible, and Peachy’s status as a superhuman caregiver has its own rewards. 
When her life on the farm isn’t quite enough, Peachy can always live vicariously through her glamorous, New York City–dwelling sister, Beth. Thin, successful, and passionate Beth has clawed her way to the top, stepping on anyone it takes to get there — including, every so often, her younger sister. Still, Peachy and Beth are close, and they support each other through crises of all kinds. 
They support each other, that is, until Beth decides to sleep with Peachy’s husband Beau — who just happens to be Beth’s ex-boyfriend. Furious, Peachy decides to go to New York City — alone — and leaves Beth home to care for her family. As she spends a terrified, exciting weekend alone in the middle of Beth’s life, Peachy must confront questions of love, loyalty, and family to find her way back home.❞
taken from 
http://www.syndetics.com/index.php?isbn=9780385660396/summary.html&client=londonp&type=rn12

http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/nextchapter_20090330_13697.mp3
interview starts at 16:35


My impression of the novel was quite different from the reviews I had read before, and also from the interview with the author, in which she comes across as highly educated and serious, touching on very important subjects in her story, such as the depression and suicide of the girls' mother. The above plot summary is accurate enough - but the other reviewers/interviewers never comment on the type of "gutter" language the main characters use all the time in direct speech.

Thus I am ambivalent about the book: I hated parts of it, but on the other hand loved it, too. I am definitely of a different generation to the author or the protagonist - and I do not get on with the language they use, especially when describing more intimate moments.

I don't remember life at nearly thirty years old being so focused on mating or finding a mate. But those were different times and the novel describes a modern, current time, with all the technologies and modern trends and fashions. Perhaps young trendy women are and think like that, or else the author perpetuates a "Sex and the City" cliché, which sells copy.

I loved the happy ending, the "rounding off" of loose ends, the fact that Peachy is emancipating herself and making choices through the weekend in NY and beyond.

I adored the setting in Essex County, striving for survival in times of unemployment, selling off the land while resenting the new subdivisions which would follow. Belle River at the shores of Lake St. Clair next to Windsor is all very real to me. I understand that one has to cross the border to Detroit to catch any airplane of consequence; that the trip to near-by Windsor is almost a trek. Having observed the dire straits Windsor seems to be in economically, I can imagine how people cling on to what little employment opportunities there are. It is not surprising that their father Lou starts his own hairdressing business.

I felt at home with the isolation of the farm, yet not very far from the town and relished the bits of language which struck me as being particularly Ontario based: the references to Canadian or North American products (Lucky Charms, Seven Eleven, La-Z-Boy) the tension between the US and Canada, as experienced by Canadians, the vocabulary used ("Oh my gosh!" or "subdivision").

I often admired the pictures Lisa Gabriele painted with a few words, e.g. p 35 "She ran up the porch and silently passed our La-Z-Boy gauntlet, sniffling." Or p 136 "He began to shake [the bottle], slow at first, but then his arm became a blur, like a graffiti artist readying a spray can." Or p. 226 "I negotiated around the Beth clones lining their lips in the mirror and talking to each other about the Marcus clones waiting for them at the bar upstairs."

For me the story also resonated as I visited NY for the first time ever last summer and found the city overwhelming and vertical. During our travels I noted things the protagonist describes: e.g. p 156 "... I could close my eyes and feel us transition from Canadian-smooth streets, the cracks practically grouted with ground-up tax money, to the bombed-out downtown Detroit roads, ..."

Finally, the group discussion questions at the end of the book are a good idea. I thought about the story along these lines and found the reflections enhanced my reading experience.

The Reading Group trashed the book. They "did not care for it" or could not bear reading it and filtering the story through the "gutter language". In fact, they lost out of connecting to a different generation and seeing the world through their eyes. But then again, they are entitled to chose what they want to spend their time on.


Lisa Gabriele in Dragons' Den clip: