“Sisters” by Daisy Johnson (post 3): Neither author nor reviewers appear to understand how the twist at the end could be psychologically possible

The twist at the end of this novel is that the narrating sister—who, throughout the novel, has been describing ongoing alleged incidents involving both herself and her sister—belatedly realizes that her sister is dead (and has been dead since before page one) (1, p. 199).

But how could she not have known that her sister was dead? Although not described, wouldn’t there have been a funeral? And if so, then for the surviving sister not to know of her sister’s death, she would have had to have had amnesia, a memory gap (cardinal symptom of multiple personality) for the funeral.

Yet neither the novel nor the reviewers (2) think this through. It appears to be one more example of their depending on the catch-all concept I call “literary madness” (i.e., no specific mental condition). They appear to explain the protagonist’s behavior as some vague combination of grief and psychosis.

But neither grief (which remembers who has died) nor psychosis—true schizophrenic psychosis does not have memory gaps; whereas, multiple personality is a dissociative disorder, not a psychosis—can explain the protagonist’s failure to recall that her sister is dead. The only psychological condition that could possibly account for what goes on in this novel is multiple personality, but neither author nor reviewers appear to have thought of it.

And if the author had no intention of writing a novel about multiple personality, how did this happen? It is probably a reflection of the author’s own psychology, which, considering the rave reviews (2), is successful.

1. Daisy Johnson. Sisters. New York, Riverhead Books, 2020.

2. Bookmarks Reviews: https://bookmarks.reviews/reviews/all/sisters-2/