ONCE WE WERE SISTERS by Sheila Kohler (NF)

Sheila Kohler has written a number of fiction novels and short stories, and this is her first non-fiction book, a memoir of growing up in South Africa during the height of apartheid.  It is largely the story of two sisters, Sheila and Maxine who were inseparable from birth.  They were raised in privilege on an estate, tended by numerous servants and parents who were busy with their own lives and interests; the girls had each other and a  delightful fantasy world.  When they were old enough they were shipped off to St. Andrews, a boarding school for wealthy white girls, followed by finishing school in Europe.  This memoir follows the girls as they grew into adulthood and chose unsuitable mates with tragic results.

Sheila and Maxine's father was a successful timber merchant who was proud of his business and Crossways, their beautiful home in a suburb of Johannesburg, with its swimming pool and golf and tennis courts. Their life was not unlike that lived by many other successful captains of commerce and industry who ruled and ordered the British Colonial world.  They lived in a patriarchal society, one of hyper-masculinity. All the dorms in their boarding school were named after South African High Commissioners.  Their mother was a high-strung pampered woman, content with her shopping and socializing, neglectful of the girls, always pursuing her own needs.  The most dignified person in their life was the tall, devoted Zulu servant, who never stopped caring and watching out for the girls.

As the girls grew into women, they left behind their protected life and out in the world, each married, handsome but totally unsuitable husbands.  Sheila's American husband proved to be a philander who lived off her money.  More troublesome was Maxine's husband, a successful heart surgeon, easily enraged who subjected the family to frequent beatings, abusive and cruel.  For Maxine and Sheila, their happiest and best times were the vacations and study tours they took, leaving their many children behind in the care of nannies; it was a time when they could forget the sadness and failure of their marriages.  It may seem strange to us today that they were willing to endure such treatment, but not so unusual in the context of the forties and fifties.

In the end, Maxine was killed in an automobile driven by her husband, a disaster which may have been deliberate.  She left behind 6 children, the youngest three years old.  In an interview, Kohler says she has been haunted and obsessed with her sister's plight and the puzzle of why the family did not step in and take action to rescue Maxine from her monstrous husband, who lived out his life without any consequences.  As a result when Kohler examines her past fiction she notes:
"I was driven to explore the reasons for violence within intimate relationships, in particular, the abuse of power and privilege."

I found the book interesting, harking back to a time when colonial life gave one an exemption from consequences, a time when many women accepted their role in society, albeit a pampered yet unhappy one.