Siblings: Sharing the I Cloud: An Exclusive Guest Post from Kara Gnodde, Author of The Theory of (Not Quite) Everything, Our March Fiction Pick 

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I asked my sister to send me one sentence for this article. “Fitting sibling relationships into one sentence is like a one-size fits all bra,” she replied. She’s right (of course). What is universal, is that our sibling relationships are inescapable, complicated and often, our most enduring. And, we have unique access to each other’s histories. Sometimes they even blur. Just yesterday my sister was recounting a familiar old story about a mutual friend’s wedding. “Oh god, yes!” I said, remembering. “Where did we stay?” “You weren’t there,” she said.  

Our sibling relationships are the purest we have. Siblings don’t hold back; they don’t have to. All this is gold for fiction. Countless books explore the paradoxes of sisterhood. They pull at my viscera; they’re personal. Like Sorrow and Bliss, or My Sister the Serial Killer (not that personal). But when asked why I decided to write about siblings, the truth is: I didn’t. I wrote a random scene about a young woman called Mimi, sitting at her kitchen table filling in a psychological questionnaire. Her older brother Art, peering over her shoulder, sees that she’s lying. The day before, I’d written about a murderer with his trousers tucked into his socks, planting tulips. The day after, a widow with a chocolate melting in her pocket befriended a boy at a ballgame.  

But the brother and sister continued to commandeer my thoughts from their kitchen. When Mimi shot across the wooden floor in a chair with wheels, Art winced, and wished that she wouldn’t, especially near the kettle. Apparently, a sadness shaped their lives and was the wellspring for Mimi’s lies. As Art watched her battle with the questionnaire, and the truth, he understood exactly why. As if he had access to the archive of her mind.  

I heard a radio program about a math problem that could change the world. I knew Art, a mathematician, would be drawn to that. His obsession would shape their lives too. But it was the siblings’ powerful bond – devoted, demanding, bristling and tense – that was the magnet for me.  

Fictional brother-sister pairs are surprisingly scarce. There are loads in Ancient Mythology. And the Bible. (So I’m told.) But it was harder to list Greatest Hits. To Kill a Mockingbird, yes. Mill on the Floss, God of Small Things. More recently, Purple Hibiscus, Great Circle, and The Dutch House. It struck me that in each, a crisis intensifies a fierce brother-sister attachment, just as their tragedy deepens Mimi and Art’s love. Suffering doesn’t always bring people closer, of course. In Educated, traumatised siblings are estranged. In Crossroads, a faltering marriage detaches children from the core.  

Brother and sister Nick and Gill Hornby, both authors, speak movingly on the podcast Relatively, about how their bond was forged by a challenging childhood. Like Art, Nick was clever and awkward, and although younger, the beautiful Gill looked out for him. As adults, it seems Nick had some say in Gill’s romantic life, as Art does in Mimi’s. Gill explains: “When I got engaged (to author Robert Harris), I said to Nick – I’m so glad you like him. ‘Well,’ he told me, ‘You wouldn’t be marrying him otherwise.’” Nick laughed. Art may not have. 

Why isn’t this rich vein explored more? Is competitive jealousy between same-sex siblings more alluring for writers? Does the brother-sister bond dissipate on contact with adulthood? I see occasional evidence for that around me, but not much. I channel Art. Google, ‘hundred best sibling novels,’ and start counting. Same-sex siblings outnumber brother-sister books by more than 2 to 1. Sisters are especially popular. Mixed sex siblings seem to be under-represented. But are they, actually? I’m just a writer. You do the math.