After reading a short story by Timothy Schaffert that I loved I wanted to try some of his longer fiction. The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters is like drinking a carousel of a boozy hot chocolate: warm, sweet, and at times causes a slight stomach ache.
Lily and Mabel Rollow are sisters who live together in a junk shop they run bequeathed to them by their Florida-retired grandmother. Both sisters feel a little lost and uncertain about their futures, primarily because neither of them has been able to make peace with their pasts. Their father killed himself when they were both very young, causing their mother to abandon them with her mother. After years of the occasional phone call and letter, Lily decides to find their mother, who she knows is now living in Mexico.
Lily and her boyfriend Jordan go on a road trip down to Mexico from Nebraska to find Lilly’s mother, while Mabel is left at home to go on her own kind of journey.
The novel follows both sister’s journeys and quests for answers written in alternating chapters and point of views. In this way we are allowed to explore the rural town in Nebraska where Mabel scavenged for junk while also hitching a ride with Lilly and Jordan through Vegas down into Mexico.
This story was written rather simply, but dealt with the complex issues of death and abandonment and how these things affect different people and their lives. It’s a lovely coming of age story with some really beautiful details woven in, like a dress that is slightly too small for one sister and too big for the other, and how a sleeping boy’s breath smells of whiskey and cherries. Schaffert does a really delightful job of adding in these sensory details to the moments the sisters find important.
This novel would be a good book for a high school reading list, but could also be enjoyed by older readers.
Bent Shelf Book Reviews 
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