Six Degrees of Separation: From Western Lane to The Sisters

 

The Six Degrees of Separation meme is hosted by Kate at booksaremyfavoriteandbest. The idea behind the meme is to start with a book and use common points between two books to end up with links to six books, forming a chain. The common points may be obvious, like a word in the title or a shared theme, or more personal. Every month Kate provides the title of a book as the starting point.

This month we are starting with Western Lane by Chetna Maroo, a novella about an 11-year-old girl who lives with her father and her two sisters and plays squash to get over her grief after the death of her mother.

1st degree:

Over ten years ago I read The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley, a Canadian author. That book also featured a 11-year-old protagonist, Flavia de Luce. Flavia narrates the story, which are set in post World War II Britain, in the village of Bishop's Lacey. She is the youngest daughter in the de Luce family, and lives with her two sisters and their father in an ancient country house. This book was the start of a mystery series in which Flavia is the sleuth.

2nd degree:

My next book is also by a Canadian author, and involves three sisters. The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott is a historical novel set in the years preceding and during World War I. The sisters, teenagers as the story begins, travel with their mother to support the family as a vaudeville act. This book covers the years from 1912-1917 and thus World War I figures a great deal.

3rd degree:

The Case of the Weird Sisters by Charlotte Armstrong is another book about three sisters. Alice Brennan has decided to marry her rich boss, Innes Whitlock. On a car trip, they get stranded in his home town, Ogaunee, Michigan. Innes decides to visit his three half-sisters. Each sister has a serious disability. Gertrude is blind, Maud has lost her hearing, and Isobel has only one arm. And they are very, very strange. Until Innes proposed to Alice, the three sisters expect to inherit from him. So when accidents start happening, Alice and the chauffeur think that the sisters are trying to kill Innes before he changes his will.  

4th degree:

I am staying with sisters as a theme. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott is a story about four sisters, this time set in Massachusetts. Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March live with their mother. Mr. March has volunteered to serve as a chaplain in the Union Army during the Civil War, and he is stationed far away. The fear that they will never see him again weighs heavily on all of them. The family once was well-to-do but Mr. March made some bad business decisions so that they have now moved to a smaller home and have to live frugally. Right next door, however, is a very rich man and his grandson, Laurie. Over time the girls and Laurie become good friends. 

5th degree:

Watermelon by Marian Keyes is the first book in a series about the Walsh family, about a family of five sisters. In this book, Claire, the oldest daughter, gives birth to her first child and finds out that her husband is leaving her on the same day. Claire had no clue that her husband was unhappy with the marriage and was having an affair with a woman that they both know. Her reaction is to leave London, where she works and lives with her husband, and go to Dublin and stay with her parents for a few months. Although Claire is the focus of the books, I enjoyed reading about the Walsh family, especially Claire's parents. Her parents were wonderful, supportive people and had all the normal reactions to the situation. Her two youngest sisters still lived at home, and had very unique and irritating personalities, but were also supportive in different ways.

6th degree:

And my last connection will be to a nonfiction book about a family of six sisters: The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family by Mary S. Lovell. This is my brief overview of the sisters, who were born between 1904 and 1920 to David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale and his wife Sidney, née Bowles. The sisters were very different and some of them were notorious. Diana was a fascist and married Oswald Mosley, who founded and led the British Union of Fascists. Unity was a huge fan of Hitler and visited Germany regularly prior to World War II. Nancy, the eldest, was a successful author of both fiction and nonfiction books. Jessica eloped with Esmond Romilly, a nephew by marriage of Winston Churchill, became a Communist, and moved to the US; she was also a successful author, of memoirs and nonfiction. Pam had the most normal life, preferring rural life. Deborah was the youngest, apolitical; she married Andrew Cavendish, who became the 11th Duke of Devonshire. Tom, the only son, was born in 1909, and was loved by them all. 

This was a very fun Six Degrees to put together. It took me from a coming-of-age book set in the UK to other books set elsewhere in the UK, and in Ireland, Canada, and the US. The first book featured a young girl with two sisters, and my theme was books about sisters. 

Have you read any of these books? I am especially interested in more book in the Walsh Family series by Marian Keyes. Has anyone read those? The books seem to be categorized as chick lit but Watermelon was more than that.

If you did this month's Six Degrees meme, where did your list take you?

The next Six Degrees will be on December 2, 2023, and the starting book will be the culinary classic, Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain.