My Sister (Real & Fictional) by Jillian Cantor

My novel, The September Sisters, is about what happens to 13-year-old Abby after her younger sister disappears. There’s a lot in the book about the two sisters, and people have been asking me how much of it is based on my own experience, growing up with a younger sister.

No, my sister didn’t disappear! But some of the details of the sister relationship in the book are similar to my own experience. My sister and I used to fight a lot when we were kids. She’s three years younger than me, but ever since I can remember she’s also been a lot taller and stronger than me, so usually I was the one losing in physical fights. (I was always better at winning the verbal ones, though. Go figure!) There’s a scene in the first chapter of The September Sisters when Becky (the younger sister) pushes Abby out of an inner tube that they both wanted and then holds her head under water. This was a common occurrence for me and my sister. (And I was always the one getting pushed out of the inner tube or whatever it was we were fighting over on that particular day!)

Another similarity: In The September Sisters, Abby and Becky are 2 years and 1 day apart – both born in September. Well, in real life, my sister and I are 3 years and 1 day apart (although we were both born in June). My birthday is first, so when we were younger, my sister would spend the entire day of my birthday talking about how many hours it was until her birthday (the next day) – just like Becky does in the book. It was so annoying. I used to hate this!!

In The September Sisters, Abby’s mother is always telling the girls that when they grow up they’ll appreciate having a sister, and when I was growing up, my grandmother always used to say this to me and my sister. (We totally didn’t believe her!)

But, she turned out to be right. Unlike Abby and Becky, my sister and I grew up completely uneventfully in the suburbs with two normal parents. Then, when I was a senior in college and she was a freshman, we were away from home, at college, together. And for some reason, I’m not even sure why, we started hanging out. We would study together and go out to lunch, and within a year we went from mortal enemies to best friends.

Now we live 3000 miles away from each other, but we still talk on the phone all the time, and we always try to spend our birthdays together. It’s funny how the thing I hated most about having a sister when I was growing up, is the thing I love most now. It’s so fun to have someone, a friend, to celebrate my birthday with every year. (Although, my sister still jokingly holds her birthday countdown on my birthday every year!)

If you want to read more about Abby and Becky, The September Sisters will be out on February 24, 2009 and is available for pre-order on Amazon now!

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As someone who has a younger sister, I can so relate to this blog. Thanks for Jillian for doing an amazing guest blog! =)