The Sisters by Jonas Hassen Khemiri

 The Sisters

By Jonas Hassen Khemiri

The Sisters and The Brothers might be more apt, since this saga follows the parallel and periodically intersecting lives of two sets of three siblings born in Sweden of a Tunisian-Swedish union. In both cases, the Tunisian parent is shifty, unreliable, inexplicably absent, withholding. The Swedish parent is solid but colorless. In this autobiographical novel, the narrator, who shares the author’s first and last names, is the oldest of three brothers whose Tunisian father lets them down, repeatedly, while their hardworking Swedish mother keeps them afloat. The three sisters are the daughters of a Swedish father who died early, and an unstable, cold Tunisian mother who repeatedly abandons them, dipping in and out of schizophrenic episodes. Ina, the oldest sister, like Jonas, the oldest brother, is abnormally tall, and carries the weight of responsibility. The middle sister, Evelyn, is the irresponsible charmer, and the youngest, Anastasia, the damaged drug dependent.

This is not Khemiri’s first work of fiction, but it is his first to be written in English. It shares the length and exhaustive detail of many first autobiographical works. It also subscribes the unhurried sense of time of Scandinavian writers. The chapters weave in and out of unconnected anecdotes not entirely justified by the resulting final tapestry. Some one-sentence passages move with almost Joycean propulsive force, but others indulge in play-by-play, pointless accounts of a basketball game, for example. Still, Khemiri’s voice is distinctive and often compelling, if the reader is prepared to go along for a ride where the detours, not the destination, are the purpose.