Review: Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors
A tender exploration of grief, this is also a novel that explores the longlasting effects of growing up in a dysfunctional family that is collectively grappling with addiction and unhappiness
The story of Avery, Bonnie, Nicky and Lucky and their dysfunctional family, Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors is a beautiful examination of sisterhood and grief as three of the sisters learn to navigate the death and loss of Nicky. They had always been a band of four against the world, against an alcoholic father and a helpless mother. Now, a year after they lost Nicky in a tragic accident, they have been reduced to three, an odd number. None of them has learnt to live with the loss and each turns to their own ways of coping – ranging from the self-destructive to the self-loathing – as they wonder what they could have done to prevent what happened.
Nicky suffered from endometriosis – an extremely painful condition in which the tissue of the inner lining of the uterus grows outside it. In a world where medicine is centred around men’s health and doctors often disbelieve and dismiss women’s pain, Nicky had to resort to substance abuse to manage her own pain. This was how she died. In the aftermath, Bonnie abandons her career as a boxing champion, Avery goes back to hiding behind work files in London, and Lucky plunges deeper into the alcoholism and substance abuse that were part of her career in the world of fashion and modelling.
The youngest of the Blue sisters, Lucky is also an addict. She is hurting after the death of Nicky, who was just two years older. Bonnie cannot watch history repeat itself. She lost Nicky to addiction and she won’t let it happen again with Lucky. The eldest, Avery, who also struggled with addiction, has been sober for a decade now. At times, she is plagued by feelings of helplessness. She fights and then admits defeat. She knows she has to let her younger sisters find their own path. In the absence of a mother who never wanted children to begin with, she has practically raised her sisters. To be the eldest sister is similar to being a guardian but not quite like being a mother.
In Avery, Mellors presents the dilemmas of being the eldest child; the eldest of the Blue sisters. Being the eldest means feeling responsible for the mistakes of younger siblings. Sometimes, it can entail saying the most painful things during the worst fights; things that are instantly regretted. It means saying what nobody else will. You mean well, and what you say comes from a good place, but the words hurt. Causing hurt is the last thing you wanted and seeing her hurt makes you hurt too. This is the essence of sisterhood. It is complicated but also miraculous. However, sisterhood can also become a source of grief and pain. Mellors has captured all this. “You never have to explain yourself to sisters,” she writes. She is absolutely right.
Addiction runs in the Blue family. The father, an alcoholic, is described as “mercurial” and as unpredictable as the weather. “Just like you wouldn’t have a picnic in a hailstorm, you couldn’t do certain things around an angry dad. No bickering over the remote, no chatting loudly with friends on the phone, no crying over a bad grade, no laughing over a silly joke, no whining to their mom that they were hungry. He was the only man in the house, but he also was the house. They lived inside his moods,” Mellors writes. In this home, the children are raised by the eldest sister, even as she is herself a child. Later, Avery and Lucky struggle with addiction. Avery, however, finds the strength to get sober. She gets help, she goes to AA meetings. Mellors writes about recovery: “That was the magic of fellowship, when it worked: the realization that parts of yourself that were the most hidden, most shameful, were that connected you most deeply to others.’
Blue Sisters with its story of hope and redemption is an interesting read. However, the writing has its shortcomings with the queer characters, especially, coming across as forced and tokenistic. Most of the other characters, though, are thoughtfully crafted and have unusual depth. Each sister feels deeply, acts consciously. The reader learns not to judge them prematurely but to understand why they act the way they do.
About Avery’s grief Mellors writes: “Her life had been reduced to two days, the day Nicky was still alive, and the day she died. The rich and subtle patchwork of years and seasons that made up her life before was gone.”
A captivating novel that is a tender exploration of grief.
Sharmistha Jha is an independent writer and editor.