Family of Liars

Carrie recalls her childhood growing up in Boston during the winters, and her family going to their private island, Beechwood Island, during the summers. She reminisces about swimming in the ocean off the island’s shore with her sisters, Penny, Bess, and Rosemary, and the elaborate parties her mother, Tipper, would throw, even without guests.

The childhood Carrie describes is one of privilege, until she begins to question her place in her family in the summer of 1984. She explains that while lounging on the beach after lunch with her youngest sister, Rosemary, she overhears her parents speaking in hushed tones. She eavesdrops and learns that her father, Harris, is insisting that Carrie undergo jaw surgery to ensure that she looks “like a Sinclair: strong on the outside because she’s strong on the inside” (13). Tipper argues with Harris, insisting that beauty is not everything, pointing out the long and extensive recovery Carrie would have to endure.

Carrie’s parents broach the subject of surgery with her, and she firmly says that she does not want to do it; she says she is fine with how she looks. Her parents relent for a time, saying that she can decide later on, but inside Carrie begins to doubt herself and her “weak jaw.” She begins to overcompensate when eating and feels “uncertain of my own teeth” (14).

As the insecurity instilled by her parents takes hold, Carrie begins to think more and more about her appearance, which she finds lacking. She admits that while she is popular, boys at school do not find her attractive, and she finds herself increasingly ugly compared to her younger sisters, whose “bones were beautiful” (15).

Tragedy hits the Sinclair family when the youngest daughter, Rosemary, drowns off the coast during the summer Carrie is 16. Carrie explains that an au pair had been watching Rosemary while she swam, but that she drowned in the minutes the au pair was gone to get sweaters for them both. 

After Rosemary’s death, Carrie, Penny, and Bess return to boarding school at North Forest academy. It being Bess’s first year at school, Carrie takes it upon herself to look out for her younger sister, while Penny is more established with a wide group of friends. Carrie explains that while she was there for her sisters, all three of them deal with their loss of Rosemary alone as they try to embody their parents’ belief that it is necessary to “keep a stiff upper lip [...] make the best of things [...] look to the future” (17) so that they may be a “credit to the family” (17). The sisters, while they joke about their father’s directive to “be a credit to the family” take it seriously. They move through the beginning months of school as if the death of their sister has not upended their lives.

On October 5, Rosemary’s birthday, Carrie finds herself at the school’s Fall Carnival, thinking about how different this year is from years past when they would have all been together to celebrate. She begins to cry as she thinks about how Penny and Bess seem to have forgotten Rosemary as she watches them go about their lives.

Penny and Bess see Carrie crying and encourage her to take part in the carnival activities. Carrie excuses herself as she realizes that her sisters are not trying to comfort her but encouraging her to move on. She leaves the carnival and goes to the roof of her dorm building, where she writes a eulogy on its wooden railing for Rosemary. When the sisters go home for Thanksgiving, Tipper does not acknowledge Rosemary’s death except to say that the house was quieter with all of them gone.

Harris again approaches Carrie about the jaw surgery, insisting it is a medical necessity. He claims that he will not take no for an answer, and Carrie thinks, in the present: “Now that I am grown, I think don’t take no for an answer is a lesson we teach boys who would be better off learning that no means no” (21).

In February, Carrie undergoes jaw surgery and endures a painful and arduous recovery. The doctors prescribe her codeine for the pain, which Carrie finds helps her to cope not only with her jaw pain but also with the loss of Rosemary. A few weeks after the surgery, Carrie wakes to find her jaw seriously infected. She takes another codeine and tries to self-manage the infection until it becomes too much for her to handle and requires further intervention and eight more weeks of recovery, during which time Carrie develops a dependence on codeine.

When she finally recovers, she finds her face almost unrecognizable. She wonders whether this new face will change her life in other areas—whether it will make her attractive to boys and make her “unique and worthy” (23). She recalls how desperately she wanted attention, affirmation, and physical intimacy during this time, and how this feeling lingered until the summer when she met Pfeff.

Carrie returns to school in May to finish the year and obsesses about difficult things in the news, such as the AIDS crisis and flooding in Brownsville, Texas. She thinks about these things to avoid thinking about Rosemary and uses codeine in increasing amounts to deal with her obsessive thoughts.

Carrie explains her complicated feelings toward her family’s wealth. She notes that long before her great-grandfather bought the island in 1926, the land belonged to Indigenous people. Her grandfather inherited the island in 1972 and passed it down to Harris and his brother, Dean, when he died. Harris and Dean made major changes to the architecture and layout of the island, mostly funded by Tipper’s trust fund. Carrie notes that her mother’s family money can be traced back to a sugar plantation in South Carolina that enslaved Black people for its labor. Her father’s family money is dirty, too, their Boston publishing house making its fortune off the backs of “exploited workers, broken contracts, and child labor overseas” (30).

Carrie explains that the bulk of her story will take place in the summer of 1987, the first summer after Rosemary’s death and the summer Lawrence “Pfeff” Pfefferman enters her life. When the family arrives at their home on the island, Clairmont House, Carrie tries not to think about Rosemary and visits her mother in their bedroom. Tipper shows Carrie her drawer of jewelry that she keeps at Clairmont House, pulling out a strand of dark pearls. She tells Carrie they were a gift from Harris for their second anniversary, when she was pregnant with Carrie, explaining that the pearls were very meaningful because things were “not easy then” (33). Carrie asks why, and Tipper claims she does not remember but tells Carrie that she intends to pass them down to her one day.

Carrie further inspects her mother’s jewelry drawer and discovers an old photograph hidden beneath the lining. Tipper stops her from pulling out the photograph and tells her it is not a photo of Rosemary. At the mention of Rosemary, Carrie expects her mother to comfort her or express her grief at the loss of her youngest daughter, but instead, Tipper fastens the pearl necklace around Carrie’s neck, telling her that she should wear them that night.

Carrie describes Penny and Bess. She describes Bess as a hardworking people pleaser. Penny, 16, is the most magnetic and charismatic of the three sisters, drawing people to her even though she is selfish and prefers things to “happen easily, without conflict” (35). Carrie states that Penny is also the most beautiful of the sisters.

Carrie describes herself as an athlete, a leader, and a narcotics addict. While she appears tall, confident, and athletic on the outside, Carrie reveals that how she sees herself on the inside is far different. Beneath the surface, she says that “my insides are made of seawater, warped wood, and rusty nails” (36).

On their first morning on Beachwood, Carrie wakes early. She passes Rosemary’s room and sees that her mother has removed every sign of her sister from the space. Carrie climbs into Rosemary’s bunk bed, which remains, and chides herself for everything she should have done when Rosemary was alive. Penny arrives, exclaiming that she needs coffee, but climbs into the bed with Carrie. Carrie suggests they go into the attic to look for games, not saying that she wants to check for Rosemary’s belongings.

They find a stack of boxes containing Rosemary’s toys and books in the attic. Together they sift through the boxes’ contents, and Penny finds an old Magic 8 Ball. She asks a series of questions about whether she will fall in love and teases Carrie when the ball responds, “As I see it, yes” (39) when she asks whether Carrie will fall in love. From the future, Carrie comments that, at this point, neither she nor Penny knows that the boys are coming and what the future holds for them. The sisters finally find Rosemary’s books and flip through her large book of fairy tales, which Tipper also used to read to Penny, Bess, and Carrie.

Carrie joins her sisters on the beach that afternoon, and Bess cries out to Carrie: “We need you” (42). Carrie laughs, as this is a familiar refrain that her sisters use to ask her to do things for them and show her that they rely on her. Carrie and her sisters spend the afternoon together on the beach. Carrie notes that none swim alone, although they do not talk about their reason for doing so. Carrie tells her sisters about her discovering the photograph in Tipper’s drawer. Penny assumes that the picture is of Rosemary. Penny suggests they should all go inside to try and find it, but Carrie discourages this idea.

After dinner, the sisters steal a bottle of wine from the cellar and sit on the porch of their uncle’s house, Pevensie. As they head back to Clairmont House, they see their parents still sitting out on the porch. Worried about what to do with the wine, Carrie leads them down to Goose Cottage, another small structure on the island, where they stash the empty wine bottle in the recycling. As they stand in the empty living room, all three sisters hear a noise that sounds like a voice singing “Hey hey hey hey” (46), a refrain from one of Rosemary’s favorite songs. Penny comments that it sounds like Penny singing, and all three feel a chill.

Carrie leads her sisters upstairs to brush their teeth before they return to the main house. Bess comments that this is going to be the best summer, and Carrie reprimands her for saying so, stating that it cannot be the best summer because Rosemary is not there. Penny tells Carrie to relax and that it is okay for them to be happy. As they leave the cottage, Carrie strains to hear the “hey hey hey hey” sound again, but the night is silent.

Carrie takes codeine and dreams that Rosemary crawls out of the ocean and into her room. Carrie fears Rosemary, envisioning her as a ghost returning to haunt her family for letting her drown with their negligence. When Carrie wakes up, she sees Rosemary kneeling on her carpet, eating from a large bag of potato chips in front of her.

Rosemary greets Carrie and says she missed her and so decided to come back for a bit. Rosemary tells Carrie that she was a good sister and that the night before, she tried to appear to Tipper, but Tipper was frightened and told her: “Don’t visit me and don’t follow me. I have to keep it together now. For the rest of the family” (53). Carrie comforts Rosemary, hurt by her mother’s rejection; Rosemary tells Carrie she is the only family member she would come back for.

Rosemary tells Carrie that she looks different after her jaw surgery. She then asks Carrie to read her “Cinderella” from her book of fairy tales. When Carrie finishes the story, Rosemary says she has to leave for now because she is tired. Carrie sits with the book in her hand long after Rosemary leaves, thinking about how her family has always loved fairy tales because “there is something ugly and true in them” (54). She re-tells her version of “Cinderella” because she feels it is a way to explain what happened to her and her family that summer.

In Carrie’s retelling, she includes the version of the story in which the stepsisters cut off their toes and heels in order to try and fit in the slipper when the prince visits. She depicts Cinderella, placing her foot perfectly into the blood-soaked slipper. Carrie compares herself to Cinderella: “I am the good sister, the outsider, the one who mourns” (56) but she states she is also a stepsister, “vain and consumed with my own internal life” (57).