The Grammarians

July 1, 2019
A literary twin experiment: At the heart of this comic novel about supersmart, language-obsessed sisters are profound questions about how close two human beings can be. "Was there anyone who understood anyone else as well as she and Daphne understood each other? There was no need to explain or justify wanting to climb linoleum M.C. Escher stairs to live in a tenement their grandparents had probably moved out of the minute they could, because Daphne already understood. Understanding is love, Laurel thought." The darling redheaded twin daughters of Arthur and Sally Wolfe of Larchmont, New York, Laurel and Daphne invent their own language while still in the crib, then embrace English with a passion that lasts the rest of their lives. "Fugacious...oxters...promptuary....They played with the words as if they were toys...involving them in intrigues of love and friendship and bitter enmity." Elegant chapters, each headed with a classic definition from Samuel Johnson's dictionary, follow the identical pair through childhood to that post-collegiate tenement apartment where the first rumblings of what will come to be known as the Rift are heard. By the time of their double wedding, Laurel and Daphne are more aware of their differences than their similarities. As 17-minutes-younger Daphne becomes a famous language columnist and 17-minutes-older Laurel becomes a kindergarten teacher, then a mom, the power between them shifts dangerously--then real hostilities are launched during a disagreement about the relative importance of Fowler's Modern English Usage and The Chicago Manual of Style. As we've come to expect in 10 previous novels, Schine's (They May Not Mean To, but They Do, 2016, etc.) warmth and wisdom about how families work and don't work are as reliable as her wry humor, and we often get both together: "Michael suspected Larry was as smart as anyone, just not paying attention. Like a Galapagos tortoise, he had no need to pay attention. He had no predators. He was protected by an expansive carapace of good nature, money, and family status." This impossibly endearing and clever novel sets off a depth charge of emotion and meaning.

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July 29, 2019
Schine’s sparkling latest (following They May Not Mean to, but They Do) has a prickly underside that keeps it anchored to the daily stresses of family life. The tale of identical twins follows word-drunk Laurel and Daphne from their infancy, when they develop a language of their own, into a childhood in the 1960s during which they become obsessed with reading the dictionary, on through their diverging paths as a poet and a grammar columnist, and into an old age in which their differing attitudes toward words tear them apart. Along the way, they baffle their parents, frighten their psychiatrist uncle Don, and intrigue their cousin Brian. Eventually, each marries a mild, tolerant man, leaving the husbands to become easier friends than their high-strung wives. Both a fizzy exploration of the difficulties of separating from one’s closest ally and a quirky meditation on the limits of language for understanding the world, the novel moves slowly through the first couple decades of the twins’ lives and then more briskly through the rest. Though the work is deliberately paced, the affectionate tension between the twins provides enough conflict for a lifetime. This coolly observant novel should please those who share the twins’ obsession with slippery language.

August 1, 2019
Laurel and Daphne, identical-twin wordsmiths with fiery red hair, are this novel's protagonists, but language is its heart. Schine (They May Not Mean to, but They Do, 2016) coyly titles each chapter with a word and definition, and then there is the dictionary the twins' father brings home one night. The giant book entwines the girls as children, as they peel through its pages, and later, when they're grown and their father has died, tears them apart with a fight over who will inherit it. From the twins' infanthood to old age, words are their bread and butter. Even more than a nose job, which makes Laurel's face ever so slightly different than her sister's, words distinguish them. Both characters become writers?Daphne a prescriptivist, instructing on the rules of language in a popular newspaper column, and Laurel a descriptivist, penning poetry that creatively mines the way language is used. But central as words may be to this witty tale of sibling rivalry, Schine also suggests that there are some things they just can't quite capture.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)