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  • My Sister, My Love: The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampike
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Joyce Carol Oates
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My Sister, My Love: The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampike Kindle Edition

by Joyce Carol Oates (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.1 out of 5 stars 140 ratings
3.6 on Goodreads
4,251 ratings

鶹

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Herein is the unexpurgated first-person narrative of nineteen-year-old Skyler Rampike, the only surviving child of an "infamous" American family destroyed a decade ago by the murder of Skyler’s six-year-old ice-skating champion sister, Bliss, and the media scrutiny that followed. Part investigation into the unsolved murder, part elegy for the lost Bliss and for his own lost childhood, Skyler’s narrative is an alternately harrowing and corrosively funny exposé of upper-middle-class American pretensions—and an unexpectedly subtle and sympathetic exploration of those who dwell in "Tabloid Hell."

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  1. Print length
    716 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Ecco
  4. Accessibility
    Learn more
  5. Publication date
    Oct. 13 2009
  6. File size
    5.6 MB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Product description

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Oates revisits in fantastic fashion the JonBenet Ramsay murder, replacing the famous family with the Rampikes—father Bix, a bully and compulsive philanderer; mother Betsey, obsessed with making her daughter, Bliss, into a prize-winning figure skater; and son Skyler, the narrator of this tale of ambition, greed and tragedy. Skyler's voice—leaden with grief and guilt—is sometimes that of the nine-year-old he was when his sister was killed, and sometimes the teen he is now, 10 years later, when a letter from his dying mother solves the mystery of Bliss's death. The emotionally wrecked Rampike children are collateral damage in a vicious marital battle; Sky is shunted aside, while Bliss is ruthlessly manipulated. Stylistic tricks (direct-address footnotes chief among them) lighten Oates's razor-sharp satire of a privileged enclave where social-climbing neighbors dwell in gargantuan houses; as Oates's readers will expect, the novel is long, propelled at breakneck speed and apt to indulge in verbal excess (as in the 55-page novella within the novel). Oates's psychological acuity, however, ranks this novel as one of the best from a dark observer of our lives and times. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“Employing her powerful imagination, the gifted Oates gets inside her fictional characters’ tormented souls to solve the case…as a literary exercise, it deserves a rave…she brilliantly depicts status-obsessed parents who alternately push and ignore their deeply unhappy children.” (USA Today)

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0015DRQ80
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ecco
  • Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ Oct. 13 2009
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ Reprint
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 5.6 MB
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 716 pages
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0061806667
  • Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • 鶹 Rank: #1,708 in American Dramas & Plays
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 out of 5 stars 140 ratings

About the author

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Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates

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Joyce Carol Oates is the author of more than 70 books, including novels, short story collections, poetry volumes, plays, essays, and criticism, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde. Among her many honors are the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction and the National Book Award. Oates is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University, and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.

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4.1 out of 5 stars
140 global ratings

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Top reviews from Canada

  • Laurel-Rain Snow
    4.0 out of 5 stars Tabloid Hell...
    Reviewed in Canada on November 16, 2008
    In this dark novel of family dysfunction at its most terrifying, Joyce Carol Oates weaves a tale of a wealthy suburban family, obsessed with its youngest family member's stardom as an ice-skating princess, and how the older sibling, awkward and unable to keep up with the family image, is shunted aside.

    Young Bliss Rampike ("Bliss" being a stage name) is pushed to excel. Dolled up (literally), she resembles a porcelain image. Nothing about her seems real, and when any possibility of a real girl emerges, her mother, terrifyingly adroit in her stage-mother role, is there to prod
    her on. The older brother Skylar is also there, with his dark thoughts and terrifying moments of clumsiness. In family portraits for the media, he is pushed to remove the "pain" look from his face.

    Behind these moments, of course, Skylar also remembers a time...before Bliss, before his awkwardness...when he was "the little man", his mother's adored child.

    This could simply be a tale of sibling rivalry, or one of living in the eye of the media. But it all becomes "tabloid hell", when one mysterious night, Bliss is found dead in the furnace room.

    Most of the book is presented from the perspective of Skylar Rampike, who takes the reader down a long and winding road of awkwardness, terror, and emotional disturbance...However, the story is uneven, diverging frequently, and full of footnotes to explain and describe events.

    At the end, something of the mystery is revealed, but many unanswered questions remain. Is anything true? Is it all just a fabrication by a disturbed young man? Did the young boy suffer from more than emotional abuse at the hands of his mother? The relationship is twisted
    to the point that Skylar "leaves" the family shortly after the murder...first to be hospitalized and then for many years to reside in "special schools"...But even after he is an adult, he stays away. The reader suspects this detachment is more than escape from the media storm...He seems to be struggling to save his very soul.

    In this family horror tale, resembling the story of Jon-Benet Ramsey, the beauty queen murdered at approximately the same time as the child in this book, Ms. Oates has crafted a truly ingenious description of family life gone awry. At times, I found the story tedious, with its winding and weaving down many paths...but I couldn't put it down or discard it. I had
    to plod along to the gory finish.

    I would not recommend this book for those who are in search of light-hearted stories with a happy ending. The reader has to be enthralled by the pursuit of the answers the book can provide in order to hang in there.

    I was unsure of how to rate this book, My Sister My Love, since it would not have wide appeal. I decided on four stars...it is excellent writing and a beautifully crafted exploration of the psyche of the characters...but many would find it tedious and rambling.

    Ms. Oates is not everyone's "cup of tea", and after reading this one, I'll probably wait awhile before submerging myself in another of her books, although I have several awaiting me on my To Be Read stack.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • jumptherope
    5.0 out of 5 stars If you've never read a JCO book...LET IT BE THIS ONE YOU START WITH
    Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    I can't stand spoilers nor do I even read the full inside flap of any book.

    Especially if it's a JCO book. I just buy it, knowing it will be unique, compelling unsettling and almost creepy.

    The skill the author has at living inside the skins and heads of ANYONE is unmatched, yet she does it over and over again.

    I recognized immediately the similarity to a "real life true crime" tragedy that happened 20+ years ago.
    Of all of her many books I have feasted upon...I consider this her best.
    (of course I still have many left to devour!)

    Her use of punctuation, parentheses and "footnotes" throughout are very effective and keep the reader *paying attention*!

    I so wish I hadnt read it yet.....the anticipation of reading it still to come!
    I also believe the *conclusion*, which has not been realized " In Real Life" and possibly never will be..
    Is the correct and reasonable one.
    READ THIS BOOK.
    It's her MASTERPIECE, in my opinion.
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  • dianadole
    5.0 out of 5 stars fascinant stream of consciousness
    Reviewed in France on November 13, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    réellement surprenant par traitement du même thème que Little Miss Sunshine, cette fois-ci intériorisé, d'une noirceur indescriptible, contemporain & éternel à la fois, reposant sur grands classiques & frais à la fois par choix d'expressions, images mentales langue anglaise ... envoûtant, un monde qui enveloppe le lecteur une fois le livre commencé. Premier livre de Oates, commencé un autre, mais difficile de les lire d'affilé à mon sens, ai du m'ouvrir sur d'autres thèmes pour ne pas succomber à l'ambiance, même si Oates dénonce & défend à nouveau ... faisant appel à l'omaginaire bien plus puissant que Clint Eastwoo ou Merryl Streep, qui visuellement laissent des chefs d'oeuvre ...
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  • Miss Read
    4.0 out of 5 stars Another powerful read from Joyce Carol Oates
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 1, 2009
    Verified Purchase
    Based on the uncomfortable, true story of JonBenet Ramsey, small-child beauty queen, this novel is an extraordinary unravelling of a family caught up in vanity, social recognition, power and financial reward through the manipulation of a young daughter in the scary, illusion-filled, voyeuristic world of ice-skating. It is not only a compelling, compulsive read that keeps you transfixed in its glare, it might also be considered a distillation of what is wrong in the distorted twenty-first century where image and 'spin', fame and wealth have become our society's raison d'etre. Woven in with a mother's 'religious right' fervour that is a similarly interesting topic of the day, the story is narrated by an older, troubled son and paints the portrait (sometimes almost caricature) of parents obsessed with acquisition of stuff and status - to the point of a horrible but not entirely unexpected (well, sort of - you'll get what I mean) conclusion. If you have trouble relating to the narrator at first - a reader might be put off for lack of sympathy and/or empathy - please push on thru. Before I start sounding even more pompous (gawd), in summary ... this is more than an excellent and gripping read, cleverly written. It's excellent brain food. Should be on all good reading lists.
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  • Leslie Bialler
    4.0 out of 5 stars Postmodernly yours, Skyler
    Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2009
    Verified Purchase
    Joyce Carol Oates's "My Sister, My Love" is the author's fictionalized take on the infamous JonBenet Ramsey case (and who better to do just that?). The murdered girl, here called Bliss Rampike, and depicted as a figure skating prodigy, has an obsessive mother, a philandering father, and an unloved son, named Skyler, who tells the tale.

    It's done up in a clever postmodernist style (complete with footnotes, sometimes themselves footnoted--don't overlook these), and the whole thing's rather tongue in cheek. It's meant not only as a retelling of the JonBenet story, but also as a sendup on contemporary American culture. You'll find thinly disguised versions of Oprah, Nancy Grace, Barbara Walters, and Bill O'Reilly--as well as digs at supermarket tabloids and reality TV. ("Tabloid Hell" to the narrator.) And, oh yes, endless lists of acronymed psychiatric disorders--some of which may actually exist for all I know.

    To some extent the book works as designed, especially in the first half, which leads up to the murder of little Bliss. And you'll probably race eagerly through that first half, in a hurry to get to that point to see what'll happen--what'll be Ms. Oates's take on this now infamous slice of American rotten apple pie. But the second half, after Bliss is carted off the scene, is somewhat of a disappointment. All the characters we've met earlier pretty much leave the stage for quite some time, while we're left only with the ramblings and shamblings of inglorious Skyler a decade after his sister's demise. And maybe you'll just throw up your hands and select something else to read when everything grinds to a halt for a fairly useless novella within the novel featuring Skyler's love for a self-destructive girl who's meant to be the daughter of an O.J. Simpson-like character as well as The Only Person Skyler Ever Loved. (Perhaps Ms. Oates means here to poke fun at the "love among the troubled in the institution" genre; if so, all I can say is "okay, we get it! Move along, please!")

    Fortunately, after the typographically tricked up "novella," we return to our regularly scheduled typeface and things pick up again. At last! You will find out who killed "Bliss" (although it's almost certainly not who killed JonBenet), and Ms. Oates's has given the killer a rather appropriate fate.
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  • Françoise Mouriaux
    4.0 out of 5 stars journal d'un survivant
    Reviewed in France on March 5, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    C'est le frère survivant qui raconte comment sa sœur a été kidnappée puis tuée à l'âge de 6 ans alors qu'elle était déjà championne de patin à glace. Ce livre se présente vraiment comme un journal avec extraits manuscrits, coupures de journaux...etc.
    Une histoire authentique racontée par une écrivaine authentique!r
    Report

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