Signed Books

Invisible Sisters
by Jessica Handler

Jessica Handler grew up in Morningside in the 1960's as one of three daughters of a progressive Jewish family. By the time she was nine, one of her sisters had been diagnosed with a rare blood disease that would kill her at a young age and the other had died from Leukemia. From this unimaginable family tragedy, Handler emerged and now shares her stirring story in Invisible Sisters, a memoir published by Public Affairs Books.

Based on a Pushcart Prize–nominated essay, this clear–eyed, candid work portrays the immense emotional toll that two daughters' illnesses take on a family living in Atlanta.

The family's move to Atlanta in 1965 allowed the father to support laborunions, and Handler, as the oldest, was alerted to the importance of demonstrations and even taken to the funeral of Martin Luther King. However, with Susie's diagnosis (compounding the worry over Sarah's chronic sickliness), the parents "began the slow and terrible turning away from one another that erodes families facing the death of a child."

Atlanta Magazine's Teresa Weaver compares the book's "lyrical elegance and cool remove" to Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking— "the highest praise possible for any memoir of loss."

If you could not attend the reading and would like to purchase a signed copy of Invisible Sisters you may use the shopping cart below.