Book Review: Vanessa and Her Sister by Priya Parmar

Vanessa and Her Sister by Priya Parmar
Publisher: Ballentine Books
Release Date: December 30, 2014
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

Publisher’s Description:

London, 1905: The city is alight with change, and the Stephen siblings are at the forefront. Vanessa, Virginia, Thoby, and Adrian are leaving behind their childhood home and taking a house in the leafy heart of avant-garde Bloomsbury. There they bring together a glittering circle of bright, outrageous artistic friends who will grow into legend and come to be known as the Bloomsbury Group. And at the center of this charmed circle are the devoted, gifted sisters: Vanessa, the painter, and Virginia, the writer.

Each member of the group will go on to earn fame and success, but so far Vanessa Bell has never sold a painting. Virginia Woolf’s book review has just been turned down by The Times. Lytton Strachey has not published anything. E. M. Forster has finished his first novel but does not like the title. Leonard Woolf is still a civil servant in Ceylon, and John Maynard Keynes is looking for a job. Together, this sparkling coterie of artists and intellectuals throw away convention and embrace the wild freedom of being young, single bohemians in London.

But the landscape shifts when Vanessa unexpectedly falls in love and her sister feels dangerously abandoned. Eerily possessive, charismatic, manipulative, and brilliant, Virginia has always lived in the shelter of Vanessa’s constant attention and encouragement. Without it, she careens toward self-destruction and madness. As tragedy and betrayal threaten to destroy the family, Vanessa must decide if it is finally time to protect her own happiness above all else.

Vanessa and her Sister is an epistolary novel told mainly through Vanessa’s diary entries but also through letters and telegrams between various characters. The Bloomsbury Group and all of its members were real people, most of whom went on to become famous in their fields. In their time they were noted for eschewing the Victorian social conventions of the time. They called each other by their first names for Pete’s sake. Scandalous! There are many characters introduced in rapid succession, most who also had nicknames. It was hard to keep them straight and I was glad for the cast of characters list in the front of the book. I had to refer back to it several times. The primary relationship explored in the book is that of Vanessa Bell and her sister Virginia Woolf. I had of course heard of Virginia Woolf and knew that she suffered from mental illness, even though I’m sad to say I haven’t read any of her books as of yet.

Aside from being mentally ill, Virginia is also a selfish, frustrating person – at least in this book. My stomach was in knots reading the horrible ways she treated her sister Vanessa. And Vanessa’s husband, aye, aye, aye – what a first class ass. Even though I wanted to shake Virginia and Vanessa too for enabling her, I did enjoy this book quite a bit. I wish that the author had showed us more of what made Virginia so charming that everyone was willing to put up with her nonsense. I couldn’t see it.

One thing that surprised me about the Bloomsbury Group was how many gay men were a part of it and how accepting everyone in the group was of them and their relationships. Lyntton, one of the gay men, writes really witty letters that provide some comic relief to what is an otherwise heavy novel. From one of his letters to Vanessa:

“Maynard dropped by my rooms in Belize Park tonight and made a gratuitous reference to my darling Duncan’s very pointy hipbone. A hipbone that I was not aware he was previously acquainted with and now obviously is. Mon dieu. Mother needs her smelling salts.”

Parmar writes Vanessa’s diary entries with beautiful, descriptive prose. The metaphors she uses are crisp and efficient: “I turn the decision over like a dish, checking for flaws.” or “When there was nothing to say, we made room for silence, like a thick blue wave rolling in from the street.”

At the end of the book, there is an author’s note regarding the historical accuracy of the book. It appears that Parmar has done quite a bit of research and it is very accurate. There is also a section about how each character’s life turned out as the book only covers a few years. I’m glad that was included.

Even knowing very little about the Bloomsbury Group before reading this book, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I imagine being familiar with the characters beforehand would make reading Vanessa’s Sister even more enjoyable.

(I received this book courtesy of the publisher.)