 Familiarity and ContemptbyKatherine Hauswirth
There’s an expression I first heard during my graduate studies that stuck with me: “No two children grow up in the same family.” Now that I’m a parent myself, I’d say the converse is equally true: no set of parents has two of the same child. That’s true even if the children are identical twins. Each child experiences and responds to the world in a different way; each has the potential to be typecast, whether as the smarter one, the kinder one, or the funnier one, the hero, the victim, or the liar. When is it that siblings begin to diverge onto separate paths? In the case of twins, do the few extra minutes of life ex-utero already begin to alter the perspective of the older child? In Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese, the male twins at the center of the novel begin as conjoined, but they cannot leave the womb together. There’s a horrifying yet ultimately heroic battle to deliver them by separating the tissue that connects them at the head, and one nearly perishes in the process. Still, the remnants of their embryonic pairing dominate their early childhoods in Ethiopia. They sleep forehead to forehead, and the protagonist, Marion, recalls their formative years as that of ShivaMarion, an entity who thinks as one, believes as one, emotes as one. But gradually it’s Marion alone who is left to tell us the whole story. He can remember the exact moment when he first felt like Marion, instead of ShivaMarion. Somewhere along the way he loses his telepathic read on his brother’s musings and motives; brother betrays brother and the gulf between them seems too wide to traverse. The “Stone” in the title refers to Shiva and Marion’s last name, the name of the biological father who abandoned them in the delivery room. His absence becomes his presence in their childhood. There are generous helpings of love from several family members and friends, including their adoptive parents, but always there is the question mark of their father, the brilliant, troubled surgeon who left without explanation. This is something Shiva and Marion continue to share—the void, the possibility, wondering if their paths may ever lead back to Stone and what that reunion might mean. In telling the story of several overlapping relationships that come to bridge great geographical distances, Verghese does an excellent job of teasing out threads of quiet revelation from what often appear to be two lives of random, jumbled circumstance. With Verghese’s broader perspective, the paradox of the brothers, separate but forever joined, of one genesis but acutely aware of conspicuous differences, also serves as a microcosm of the human family, capable of both striking nobility and stunning thoughtlessness. Ultimately it’s the former that prevails in a surprising way, and Verghese ties the many strands of the story together masterfully, revealing hope for redemption from unlikely places, even in the face of harsh pain and betrayal. I visited another pair of siblings this month in the historical novel Harriet and Isabella, by Patricia O’Brien. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s family survived a scandal that culminated in one of the most publicized trials of its time. Harriet and Isabella’s brother, well-loved minister Henry Ward Beecher, is accused of adultery. There’s a large segment of the public that finds great glee in knocking a privileged man from his protected pedestal, and onlookers and reporters seem to follow the family everywhere. A passionate suffragist, seen by many as scandalous in her own right, fans the flames of public excitement even further with her accusations about Henry’s hypocrisy. Had the family lived during the age of Google and Twitter they’d surely be doomed to round-the-clock, real-time tweets and buzzes. Like Cutting for Stone, Harriet and Isabella also examines two siblings who are initially simpatico but find themselves at great odds. The book starts during the not-too-distant aftermath of the trial, as Henry lays dying in his well-appointed Brooklyn, New York, home. Harriet is a frequent presence there, but Isabella is forbidden to come, even for a final goodbye. The book looks back on how such a rift was born in the midst of such a close family. Harriet and Isabella share a history of religious upbringing, ardent abolitionism, and a cluster of siblings who enjoy spending time together at meals and in conversation. Harriet, of course, is a celebrity because of her novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but overall she seems to stay grounded. However, one of her chief personal principles is fierce family loyalty, and this clashes loudly against Isabella’s overriding commitment to honesty and integrity. No one knows for sure whether Henry was an adulterer; a history of whispers about other dalliances and his magnetic personality make it seem entirely plausible. Only Isabella is vocal about the possibility, and she’s consumed with seeking the truth. Her motives seem pure; she loves her family and believes wholeheartedly in the powers of confession and redemption. But her conviction leaves her visited with disdain from most of the Beecher clan, especially Harriet, who refuses to question her brother, to even entertain the possibility that he might be lying. Which is more important, loyalty or honesty? Like Shiva and Marion, Harriet and Isabella are startled to find themselves on opposite sides of a seemingly unbreachable divide. O’Brien paints the picture convincingly—the crucible of time ticking around Henry’s death bed creates an urgency to explore the sisters’ history and what commonalities might be strung together to bridge the great gap. Each sister suffers from the weight of her own convictions, but as in Cutting for Stone the author ultimately shows us the potential for human nobility to override hurt, fear, and anger. In the case of the sisters, as with Shiva and Marion, the ultimate action that reconnects the two cannot be forced and a seemingly endless interval of doubt and discomfort must elapse before forgiveness seems within reach. Those of us with siblings, or sibling-like friendships, will recognize the push and pull that often accompanies this kind of close bond. There are memories of shared love, or at least commiseration about shared circumstance, but there are also moments when inexplicable actions from one of the pair can engender a rift, sometimes even a seething disgust, a threat to sever the bond forever. And there are those broken pairings that are unredeemable. But as with Shiva and Marion, as with Harriet and Isabella, often these figuratively “joined at the hip” bonds are the testing grounds for our relationship with humanity at large. We can see the worst in others but also discover the best. When we find a glimpse of ourselves mirrored in the other, we can finally find a way to cross over and meet on common ground. Books mentioned in this column:
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