"The Girls" an unimaginable story

Lori Lansens' "The Girls" is a story no one every thought to tell of characters no one would want to imagine.

She introduces her readers to Rose and Ruby Darlen, sisters closer than nature should allow. The conjoined twins tell us the story of their life in overlapping layers of a journal-like voice as they come to grips with the fact that at 30, their life is about to end.

Living their lives without ever looking each other in the eyes, the conjoined twins are joined at the head, sharing major arteries and veins that make separation impossible. They live in a house filled with mirrors, for looking at their misshapen heads is the only way they can see one another to read each other's expressions and body language. Joined in this highly unusual way, Rose is fully developed, but Ruby is like her child, born with club feet and an underdeveloped internal system. Rose must carry Ruby, all her life, with there arms wrapped around each other in support as Ruby sits on Rose's hip.

The girls are night-and-day different. One bookish, the other outgoing. One quiet, the other a chatterbox. But together they must learn to not only share their body, but their life. Their road isn't an easy one. Definitely not one that someone would choose to live, yet Lansens doesn't allow you to feel pity for the girls.

She introduces you to them without the pitying stares of handicapped labels. The reader knows the stares occur, and feels almost indignant when they do. The reader feels protective of The Girls, but wants to see them live, survive, thrive in their unusual way.

As the end of their time draws near, the reader hopes for the best for the girls, prays for love to find them, even in their last days, cries for the lost daughter, the lost mother, the chances that could have been if things had been different. If they weren't thought of as witches on their visit to Slovakia. If they hadn't been born on the day a tornado tore through town and robbed their neighbor of her only son. If they had only had more time with their aunt and uncle. If their mother hadn't looked at them in horror and run away.

But The Girls capture it all in their own words, put down on paper through Lansens' eloquent prose that bring The Girls to life. The fictional work is so real in its emotion and power that the book ends long before you want it to, but well before you have to believe The Girls are gone.

The 300-plus-page book is well worth the trip to a place most readers could never imagine into a life most readers would never dare to dream of for fear it would be a nightmare. Lansens' work is truly unforgettable. Never will you think of sisters again without thinking of the two that shared everything, their life, their loves, and all their blood.