From the time she was just a little girl, way back in the ‘60s, Ollie’s behavior was bizarre. But her loving parents hoped Ollie would snap out of her erratic moods, tantrums and depression. They wished Ollie would become less volatile, less self-destructive, less manic and more like her younger sister, the amiable Amy, affectionately nicknamed, Bunny. In her teens, Ollie’s aberrant behavior accelerated. The family dealt with one crisis after another “recalibrating the idea of normal” until she became too much to handle.

Ollie’s odd conduct gutted the conservative Shred family. Mom, a bridge lady “with an out-sized need to control”, went apoplectic each time Ollie went off the rails. Dad, on the other hand, downplayed Ollie’s antics. Happily writing checks he indulged her every whim. To Dad Ollie was “god’s gift to heredity”. Mom was the “bad cop.”

Amy adored her sister. Bedazzled by Ollie’s charisma, envious of her startling beauty, “her coolness, her daring”. She forgave Ollie’s incivility, her biting sarcasm, outrageous accusations, often wishing she were more like Ollie. Amy ceded to her parents’ every wish and yet Ollie was the family’s shining star, Amy always the “Bunny.”

In her teens Ollie began to flunk out of high school. She flouted basic family rules, disappeared for days without any accountability. The family made concessions to placate her mercurial moods. But after she was caught stealing a mink coat and several expensive items worth thousands from a friend’s house the family had to face facts. Not everything could be undone. To avoid legal consequences and a criminal record, the family committed Ollie to a psychiatric hospital rather than a Juvenile detention home. She remained at “The Place” for two years earning her “ticket out” by cunningly manipulating staff with feigned “good behavior.” Upon, release, Ollie “took off” from home. Unchanged, she lived in shelters, supported herself “via men.” She occasionally surfaced “fully charged” manic or closing herself off with crushing depression. Unapologetic Ollie burrowed deeper into an emotional rabbit hole. Did Amy fare better?

Of course she dutifully completed Columbia then continued into graduate school after which she took a job at a publishing company editing science books. Wishing she were “someone else”, Amy “pushed people away …never made friends”. A brief and devastating liaison with Josh, a wanna-be actor, and a broken marriage to attorney Mark sent Amy into decades of therapy. Would there ever be a happily-ever-after for either of the Shred sisters?

From the author of the acclaimed Bridge Ladies, Shred Sisters by Betsy Lerner is a poignant, incisive and deeply moving story of a family who struggled with mental illness when little was known about bipolar or manic-depressive disorders and less how to cope with these debilitating mental conditions.