The Girls (Lori Lansens)****

The Girls tells the story of twins Rose and Ruby, who are approaching their thirtieth birthday. But it is no ordinary story: the twins are joined at the head. Ruby’s legs are too small and weak to reach the ground, so Rose has to carry her everywhere they go.

It’s a shocking story in a way, but less so than you’d expect. I don’t think Lori Lansens is any kind of twin herself, and her acknowledgements suggest her knowledge of conjoined twins seems to come from books. So, as most people would say, it’s a very brave choice of subject.

However, in some ways, Lansens has played safe in choosing such an original and emotional subject. The subject would have been likely to provoke emotion in her readers whether the author writes well or not. I don’t like it when writers do this as a rule. I won’t be manipulated into getting emotionally involved with a story just because it’s got challenging subject matter. (Yes, Ian McEwan, I do mean you, and you’ll be hearing from me later.) It’s got to be a good book as well – well-written; characters who are interesting in their own right. Ideally, I like books to have plots too, and the weakness of The Girls is that there is no real plot – but it is written as the twins’ autobiography, and you wouldn’t normally expect someone’s life to be a plot, so the lack of plot in this case serves to make the book more realistic.

Rose and Ruby are very different characters: joined at the head, but with separate brains, thoughts, and feelings. I find Rose a more attractive character, but Ruby is very amusing. They make a really good pair of protagonists. I hate books when the characters are irritatingly good, but Lansens is not afraid to give her characters failings, and never suggests that either girl is perfect. Rose is clearly the more literary twin, but the sections told from Ruby’s point of view are also brilliantly done – Ruby is not a great or an enthusiastic writer, and it shows, but her simple, factual descriptions, used sparingly by Lansens, are very easy to read, and Ruby has as much a ‘voice’ as Rose.

It isn’t just the fact they are conjoined that makes Rose and Ruby interesting characters. It wouldn’t have been the same story if they had been separate, but their very strong personalities would have been exciting to read about in any book. I did feel sympathy for the twins, but mostly with their emotional trials – which are sometimes as a direct result of their physical condition, but not always. They have many of the same problems anyone else.

Maybe I’m a bitch. I never really felt any pity for Rose and Ruby. It seems really offensive to pity them. Their lives are challenging, but they are a lot more independent than I am. They live alone, and have jobs (not even the same jobs, although they obviously work in the same place), and have achieved a lot, both together and individually. They are admirable and inspiring and courageous, but in no way pitiful.

It usually annoys me when authors forget important things about their characters, but, as an emetophobic, I appreciate the fact that Lansens mostly seems to forget about Ruby’s chronic travel sickness. Lansens describes the incidents in her books so vividly – particularly when writing from Rose’s point of view – and there are parts of the early chapters of this book that I would rather not read again. All the same, it doesn’t bother me as much as most v-scenes do because it didn’t seem to be put in simply for effect or, worse, humour. It’s just a part of their lives. And that’s part of why I loved the book so much. Lansens doesn’t turn everything into a big drama because she realises it doesn’t feel like a big drama to Rose and Ruby. She tells the story simply, and that’s part of what makes it so powerful.