Status
Call number
Publication
Description
An estranged brother and sister reconnect in this moving novel from "perhaps the most significant lesbian fiction writer of the 20th century" (Katherine V. Forrest, author of Curious Wine). When the novel opens, Diana's twin brother, David, a widower in his mid-sixties, is looking back on his life. As memories swamp him, he decides to take a critical step: to beg for his sister's forgiveness. Diana has never met David's two daughters. She has no idea how many grandchildren he has. David doesn't know Diana's longtime lover, Constance, housebound by advancing memory loss and for whom Diana writes the day's events on an erasable board to help her keep track of a life that's slipping away. Estranged for nearly forty years, David appears at Diana's dinner table, throwing her life into turmoil. But as she and her brother begin to rediscover each other, they both find the strength to move on with their lives. Told in Diana and David's alternating points of view, Memory Board makes a powerful case for living in the present and making every moment count.… (more)
User reviews
I feared the book, which I loved when I first read it, would have dated. It has, but in a good way - homosexuality is treated as a novelty and as a taboo in a way that now seems quaint. Rule does not have a good ear for dialogue but David's internal monologues in particular more than make up for it. I'm glad to have read it again.
David Crown is Diana's twin brother. Many years ago, David's wife insisted that he cut off all contact with Diana, when they learned that she was a lesbian. David's children don't even know they have an aunt, let alone that she has lived with another woman for close to 40 years.
Now that David's wife is dead, David decides it is time to re-establish his relationship with his sister.
But will she, and Constance, accept him into their lives?
This is an extremely slow, emotional story. Not much happens; most of the book is told within the heads of the characters - all of whom lead fairly quiet, elderly lives. Will Diana forgive David for cutting her off? Is it too late to repair their relationship? Will David's children accept Diana and Constance, or perpetuate the family rift and anger from their mother? And how will Constance and Diana cope with the possibility of change in their lives, and Constance's increasingly disabling condition?
Jane Rule crafted a lengthy, quiet, and very moving story in this 1989 Naiad book. It took me a very long time to get into the story, since it is very dated and mostly reflects 1950s-era attitudes on lesbianism. I nearly put it down several times, in fact. But, in the end, I found myself enjoying this quiet tale and these characters, despite the fact that I found the story very dated from a political standpoint. It is not a book that I would ever re-read, but I am glad that I finished it.