Member Review

Cover Image: Silent Sisters

Silent Sisters

Pub Date:

Review by

Christina D, Reviewer

In "Silent Sisters," Joanne Lee takes readers back in time to her traumatic and sometimes unimaginable childhood, one fraught with abuse, severe neglect, hunger and poverty all at the hands of her mother. There are times when it's hard to believe that a mother could care so little for her children (or just plain HUMANS!) that she would let them starve, intentionally leave them on their own at very young ages while she cavorted around town drinking heavily and being so promiscuous that she finds herself pregnant over and over again. During subsequent pregnancies, she hides her growing bump and then after birth, murders the babies and stuffs their bodies in a bin she keeps in her closet (?!?!). Most other times, she reads a magazine and gets drunk while her children starve, are injured (and refuses to treat them or take them to the hospital), feed themselves from the meager food in the house (when there is any food at all), steal milk from the neighbors' porches, all the while the electricity and gas are turned off and they are unable to even have a hot bath every now and then. From the age of 7/8, Joanne is wholly responsible for raising her (surviving) siblings from infancy through adulthood and keeping herself alive in the worst of circumstances. It's all so out of this world that it's hard to believe it could even happen in a first-world country (the UK) and under the eye of social authorities.

I also found it incredible that so many seemingly caring adults were in and out of Joanne's life (and the lives of her siblings) and either did not realize the extent of their neglect and abuse or could not do more to help them. The authorities were involved several times, all to no avail. Questions that remained for me include: What about Joanne's father? Why didn't he do more to help his daughter after the breakup with her mother? He knew what she was like and still he left his children in the mother's "care." Why didn't Joanne's own mother do more to help her grandchildren, especially when she saw first-hand the squalor they lived in and knew they were starving and neglected? How about Joanne's aunt (her mother's sister)--who appeared to be in denial about the children's neglect and abuse and later takes her sister's side against the children? How could this many adult family members have turned a blind eye to the plight endured by these innocent souls? Even after Joanne tells the police about the bodies of her sisters in the bin, and after a trial, the court only finds the mother guilty of hiding her pregnancies (WTH??!!) and she does very little time for her part in their deaths.

While the writing wasn't particularly strong and in many places Lee describes the atrocities with such matter-of-factness that it seems to lack emotion, I reminded myself that Lee is a survivor first and an author second. The lack of sophistication in storytelling does not render her memoir less compelling. However, I had a hard time connecting with her and her siblings emotionally, which could be due to the writing style, lack of development or editing.

That said, I found the story so intriguing that I researched Joanne's story online after finishing the book to find out more. As a memoir, I think there are others that are better developed and from stronger writers, but on balance, I'd rate this book a solid 3.5 stars and recommend it to those interested in true crime.
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