Irises (review)

Since the accident that left their mother in a permanent vegetative state, Kate and Mary have suffered without her gentle support and respite from their pastor father's oppressive rules about how they should dress, talk, and behave. Elder sister Kate has found some escape by depending on her best friend and her boyfriend to get her out of the house, but Mary has resigned herself to caring for her mother at home, her only self-asserting behavior being to claim an extra hour of art-studio time every day after school. When their father dies, the girls are lost at first, and they're concerned about their financial ability to continue their mother's care. Kate's boyfriend proposes, but she finds herself attracted to the new pastor at their church, who introduces some challenges to her ideas of what it means to be selfish, among them the possibility of removing her mother's feeding tube. The formal, measured diction of the prose reinforces the weightiness of the issues the girls face; it slows the reading down and mimics the girls' own voices as they gradually awaken from their sheltered past to consider the ethics of their dreams. Kate and Mary are very different: Kate is a strong pragmatist who is extremely rational but feels inadequate in matters of the heart, while Mary is a dreamy artist who leads with her emotions; however, they are both strongly committed to each other and to their principles. Their story is thus a powerfully thoughtful exploration of one of the most serious questions contemporary life throws at us, and it's made engrossingly messy by the sisters' differences as well as the fact that their choice will ultimately determine their ability to embark on their own futures. Strong stuff, gently handled.