Glenn's Sister

The 50s and 60s come alive in this episodic memoir set in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The drug culture, the Vietnam War, and the music of the time provide a vivid context for the story of a family united by love but torn apart by an unspoken secret. At the book's center lies the deep bond between Glenn and his sister, Carolyn, who uses multiple points of view to tell the tragic story of her brother's brief life with insight, understanding, and wry humor.

"Who can explain the secrets held by members of a family in knowing silence?" asks Carolyn Plath in the preface to her heartbreaking yet sassy memoir, "Glenn's Sister." From the opening pages, it's clear why that job has fallen to her. Before she turned 25, Carolyn was the only one of the family left standing. Decades later she was still lugging around her dysfunctional family's history, trying to make sense of how and why so many things went wrong for her beloved older brother, with whom she shared a connection she felt in the marrow of her bones. She had a lot of unpacking to do.