Charles Baxter (1987)
I enjoy movies and books that play with time, shifting back and forth to tell parallel stories, so I found the reverse chronology of this story an intriguing device. Hugh, a car salesman living in his Michigan hometown, and his younger sister, Dorsey, an astrophysicist living thousands of miles away, have grown up and grown apart. Baxter’s story-telling shows the reader how they got there and where they came from, tracing their intertwining lives back in time to the day of Dorsey’s birth. A simple story, beautifully told, which caused this older sister to think back on her own sibling history.
