Conversely, siblings form a bond created by years of shared experiences. I will be among the first my siblings call for help when they need to make hard decisions. I nearly always have someone I can go to a movie or grab drink with. And throughout all the relationships in my life, there are three people who know me nearly as well as I know myself and will always be there for me.
Freud’s Blind Spot: 23 Original Essays on Cherished, Estranged, Lost, Hurtful, Hopeful, Complicated Siblings, edited by Elisa Albert, examines the strange forces that bring siblings together and drive them apart. The stories feature siblings as best friends, strangers, bullies, rivals and as memories. The theme throughout, although sometimes not stated, is that regardless of the dynamics, our relationships with our siblings are an important part of the equation as to who our adult selves turn out to be.
Albert does a great job at keeping the book cohesive, even with wildly different styles in writing, ranging from essay to comic to question and answer. The three sets of essays formatted as messages back and forth between siblings are fascinating. In two stories, one sibling will send the other a questionnaire about a variety of things: earliest memories, was it true that you…?,did you like me?, etc. The responses, as well as the questionnaire sent back in reply, tell a story and describe the people involved as well as any prose could. (“Did I make you a lesbian because I was so cute? Was I your first love?” “Yes. You still are, and always will be.”) They also offer a model by which readers can engage in conversation with their own siblings.
In her essay Gender Studies, Mary Norris struggles as she reflects on her relationship with her brother and her sister, one in the same. Her brother Dennis undergoes gender-reassignment surgery and becomes Dee. Is Dee the same person as Dennis? Is it okay for Mary to mourn the loss of her brother before she can accept the new person in her life? How can she adjust habits developed over a lifetime? “This is my brother…. This is Dee.” Because its not portrayed as an after school special, where people confront an issue, struggle but ultimately live happily ever after, the reader is brought along with Mary in her pain and questions.
Other stories are more light-hearted reflections on childhood and growing up. On being too young to know the meaning of phrases, but suggesting to your mother, when she announces being pregnant with your new sibling, that maybe she get an abortion. When your relationship with your sister changes the day she sits behind you in the birthing tub to support you during childbirth. The bond the forms between brothers when they feel like hired help to their mother and turn roofing a house into a summer-long disaster.
Freud’s Blind Spot offers something for every person who has a sibling, wants one or wishes one never entered his or her life. It will cause readers to pause and consider the reason behind their love or hate for the people who grew up with them. To reflect on people who are part of their lives through chance and the effect those people have on them now.
