My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece
Summary:
Jamie is a ten-year-old boy whose family bears a traumatic burden: the death of his older sister Rose, twin to Jas, in a terrorist attack in London five years ago. Jamie’s parents and sister are deeply affected by Rose’s death; his parents have split up and Jas still grieves his twin sister. Jamie was too young to remember Rose properly and does not feel grief in the same way. When Jamie, his dad, and sister Jas move from London to the Lake District, Jamie’s life goes through another upheaval. His father continues to drink and he believes all Muslims are terrorists. This makes it difficult when Jamie makes a new friend, Sunya, the only Muslim girl in school.
Edited by: Dublin City University
Comment:
The novel deals with many weighty issues including racism, terrorism, death, grief, and family breakups through the eyes of ten-year-old Jamie. Jamie has an unromanticised view of grief following the death of his sister and wonders why his parents expect him to grieve for someone he does not remember. Jamie’s grief is instead focused on the complicated dynamics of a family breakup and his feelings of abandonment by his mother. The main focus of the novel is Jamie’s transformative relationship with Sunya, the only Muslim girl in his new rural school, whom he looks to for protection and comfort, and whose openness allows him to process the complicated family grief he bears. Jamie’s friendship with Sunya and Jas’s relationship with a boy her father terms ‘gay’ allow the reader to understand that a parent’s views are not always necessarily right.