51 pages • 1 hour read
Shred Sisters
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Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Do Not Feed the Fish”
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness, death by suicide, bullying, child sexual abuse, and substance use.
Amy Shred must awaken her father from a nap: While jumping on the couch, her older sister, Olivia “Ollie” Shred, accidentally launched herself into the window. Glass shards are everywhere, embedded in Ollie’s skin. When the EMTs arrive to take Ollie to the hospital in an ambulance, Dad tells Amy to stay behind. Amy tries to vacuum up the remaining glass, trying to find an outlet for her nervous energy, but the vacuum cannot handle the mess.
When Dad returns, he tells Amy that Ollie will come home tomorrow. She is fortunate that most of the damage was done to her back—not a shard touched her beautiful face. Mom has been away on a bridge cruise with some friends, and Dad decides not to tell her what happened when she returns. Instead, Mom tells them about her trip, giving Ollie a souvenir bear, of which Ollie has a collection.
Amy and Ollie were rivals from the start. Where Amy is “slow and methodical,” Ollie “c[a]n’t stand waiting for anything” (6). Ollie bullies Amy, calling her names and stealing her food. Where Amy’s report cards are full of good grades, as well as cautious reports on her introversion, Ollie’s report cards reveal dismal grades and an inability to focus. By the time she is in high school, Ollie’s moods and tantrums control the family. While Dad indulges her, Mom believes that Ollie uses her beauty, not to mention her status as a track star, to her advantage. At 15 (to Amy’s 11), Ollie begins to disappear from home, ignoring any and all rules.
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary
While Ollie despises the country club to which the family belongs, Amy enjoys its restrictive pleasures. Ollie deigns to join the family one evening to celebrate the removal of her braces. She and Amy go to the bathroom together, and Ollie disappears behind a door marked “Do Not Enter.” After they get home, she tells Amy that she met a busboy in the kitchen—where the door led—who fashioned her a ring out of a dinner fork. When the boy hangs himself later after experiencing depression, Ollie exhibits no response.
Amy, on the other hand, becomes upset over everything. By the time she reaches seventh grade, she has been branded a socially awkward know-it-all. Thus, she spends much of her time ensconced in the library with the librarian, Mrs. Breen, whom Amy adores. At the end of the year, however, Mrs. Breen gifts Amy a copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People, and Amy is appalled. She realizes that Mrs. Breen wants to help her, not understand her—just like her mother.
Before high school, Amy joins a bridge club organized by the local college. Though she picks up the rules of the game quickly—she is nothing if not a quick learner—she is still unable to navigate the social cues of friendly interaction, especially with boys her age. The boy on whom she harbors a crush invites her on a walk, and it quickly becomes clear that he is interested in her. However, Amy does not understand how to flirt or how to respond to his advances. He goes off with another girl.
Meanwhile, Ollie develops a habit of shoplifting and continues to scoff at any kind of rule or restraint. The family goes out to dinner to celebrate Mom’s birthday, and the topic of college comes up: Ollie states that she does not want to go. While her parents dismiss this pronouncement, it is clear, especially to Amy, that Ollie has done nothing to indicate that she will go (such as filling out applications or visiting campuses). They are all distracted when Ollie presents Mom with a birthday gift. It is a tennis bracelet, replete with diamonds. Everyone knows—but does not acknowledge—that it was stolen.
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary
Ollie’s behavior begins to drive a wedge between her parents. Dad continues to indulge her and excuse her disobedience, while Mom wants to exert more discipline. Ollie begins to use drugs, keeping her stash of marijuana in her car. The track team dismisses her when she shows up to a meet under the influence.
Ollie begins dating Ben, an older boy who loves to surf. When she goes missing—this time for longer than usual—the family realizes that they do not even know Ben’s surname. The police are unconcerned; this kind of behavior is common in teenagers. When Ollie finally returns, she does not offer apologies or explanations. Because of her absences and grades, however, the school principal informs the family that Ollie will have to repeat her senior year. The school also recommends a psychiatric evaluation, which Mom tricks Ollie into attending. Ollie runs off in fury after the appointment.
In a last-ditch attempt at bringing the family together, Mom and Dad plan a road trip to Washington, DC. Amy is excited to see the pandas at the National Zoo, while Ollie complains about everything. When they stop to eat a picnic lunch, Ollie grabs Amy’s sandwich and causes a scene. They regroup in the car, but Amy ignites into fury, pulling Ollie’s hair and causing her to shriek. Dad swerves and pulls over, threatening to drive home. Ollie says that she never wanted to go on the trip in the first place. Dad turns around and drives home.
Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary
When Ollie is 18, she is hospitalized. The family calls the facility “The Place.” Mom suggests that Ollie does not want Amy to visit, so Amy does not see her sister for many months. The impetus for the hospitalization was Ollie stealing a mink coat and some antique spoons—worth upward of $60,000—from a friend’s house. Instead of serving time in jail, Ollie is sent to the psychiatric ward.
Dad eventually insists that Amy should see Ollie. At first, Amy is terrified that Ollie will have changed so much she will not be able to recognize her, but she is relieved to find that Ollie appears much the same. However, upon closer inspection, it is clear that Ollie is not quite herself: Her feet are dirty, and her scalp is flaky. She looks unhealthy.
In the group therapy session, Amy is asked to explain why Ollie is at The Place. She responds that she only hopes that Ollie will be okay. The staff shows approval of her response by snapping their fingers. Secretly, however, Amy does not believe that therapy will help Ollie at all. Later, the family is asked to make cards for their loved ones. On her card for Ollie, Amy writes, “This sucks.” Ollie appreciates the sentiment, calling Amy to tell her.
Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary
Amy enters high school, wishing only to fit in but unable to make any real friends. She comforts herself by telling herself that she is smarter than the other students. Still, the isolation and bullying become too much to handle. When she is celebrating her science fair win with her parents, she tells them that she does not want to return to public school. Mom immerses herself in the project of finding Amy a suitable private school.
Meanwhile, Ollie remains at The Place. She has developed an obsession with her new therapist, the young Dr. Lucie, and expresses her devotion in inappropriate ways. She also lets herself out of The Place to attend a concert at CBGBs, the legendary punk-rock club. Thus, Dr. Simon, the head of The Place, recommends that Ollie stay at the facility for another year. As her high school class graduates, Ollie becomes a ward of the state. Reeling from the news, Ollie physically attacks Dr. Lucie. The family is asked not to attend therapy sessions anymore.
Amy thrives at her new private school, which is set up like a college. She stage manages a successful run of Gypsy and joins Mathletes, making some friends along the way. As her sophomore year wraps up, Ollie is finally released from The Place. The family attends her farewell ceremony, during which Ollie thanks the staff and her family—though Amy worries that she is putting on an act.
Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary
Ollie leaves home shortly after leaving the hospital, and the family decides not to try to track her down. She shows up intermittently for the next few years, and the family simply learns how to function with this uncertainty. They rarely speak of Ollie or her absence. When Amy graduates from high school, set to attend Columbia in the fall, she misses her sister. A man in the parking lot takes what will be the last picture of Mom, Dad, and Amy together.
Mom and Dad inform Amy that they are getting a divorce. Before, Amy believed that Ollie was tearing them apart; now, it appears that she kept them together. In her absence, they are left with nothing to discuss or argue about. When Amy leaves for college, she takes only a handful of personal effects. Unfortunately, college becomes an experience similar to high school. Amy finds it difficult to make friends, and the resident assistant recommends therapy.
Meanwhile, Amy watches as her mother withdraws after the divorce: Mom’s sense of security and happiness has all but evaporated. Amy also reflects on her father’s response to the divorce. His affair with Anita, his assistant at his home design business, began long before; Amy recalls a lunch with the two of them when she was in seventh grade. This is coupled with a memory from the same time of one of the warehouse workers sexually assaulting her (he became aroused when helping her wash one of the delivery trucks). Dad dismissed the incident, and Mom insisted that she take a long shower. Mom later admitted that she always hated thinking about Dad and Anita laughing at her ignorance of the affair.
Amy visits the counselor at the health center on campus. The counselor assumes that the divorce is the underlying source of Amy’s difficulty, and Amy neglects to mention Ollie. Their sessions end when the counselor accepts another job, though she extends an offer for Amy to call her any time (which Amy silently but adamantly refuses). She finally decides that she must visit Dad, who currently lives in Florida with Anita, now his wife. By the end of the visit, Amy feels certain that Dad knows where Ollie is.
Part 1 Analysis
From the beginning, it is clear that Amy and Ollie Shred are foils, if not outright antagonists, to one another, establishing the theme of Sisters as Opposites and Mirror Images. They share a bond as sisters growing up in the last decades of the 20th century in middle-class Connecticut—but not much else. As the narrator, Amy is at pains to delineate the differences between them: Amy approaches life methodically, while Ollie barrels through it; Amy gets good grades and thrives within routine, while Ollie fails to graduate high school and flouts every rule she encounters; Amy attempts to make herself invisible, while Ollie often steals the spotlight. They are even physical opposites, as Amy is small and slight, while Ollie is “tall” and “willowy.” That the cost of Ollie’s chaos often falls on Amy heightens the conflict between them.
Indeed, the book begins in a crisis of Ollie’s making that helps establish both her character arc and Amy’s. After she crashes into a window while jumping on the couch, she is rushed to the hospital while Amy is left behind, her anxiety palpable: “I called the hospital but couldn’t get through. It was getting dark, and I started to panic. Here I was again, on the sideline of another crisis Ollie created, staged, and starred in” (5). Not only are Amy’s needs overshadowed by those of her sister, but her parents (likely inadvertently) encourage her to consider those needs above her own: “I didn’t want [Dad] to think I was more worried about myself than about Ollie” (5). Similarly, when her parents fight about Ollie’s behavior, Mom invokes her influence over Amy, who describes herself as “the silent and seemingly invisible pawn” in such interactions (35). Thus begins a lifelong habit of obscuring her own identity in favor of supporting (and simultaneously resenting) her sister. Aside from her academic acumen, Amy would rather remain unremarkable, and this self-effacement hinders her growth given The Need for Authenticity in Understanding the Self.
Meanwhile, Ollie’s behavior continues to escalate; in contrast to Amy, she is the object of remark and rebuke. For Amy, at least, the signs of her impending mental illness are present from an early age, although Amy’s troubled relationship with her sister introduces some ambiguity as to how conscious Ollie’s actions are. For example, when visiting the Bronx Zoo, Ollie refuses to leave the bear exhibit, and her parents submit to her demands: “The story goes that they stayed watching the bears until the zoo closed. At three, Ollie already knew how to exert her power, and my parents, beguiled by their little girl, acquiesced” (7). This kind of stubbornness becomes defiance by the time Ollie reaches her teen years, but whether it is as calculated as Amy says and to what extent it intersects with Ollie’s mental illness (variously diagnosed as bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder) is not entirely clear, placing the emphasis as much on the sisters’ conflicting personalities as on anything else.
Amy also recognizes that Ollie is “reckless,” but the larger implications of this only become evident as time passes: “What no one yet understood was that Ollie had no brakes” (19). There are several signposts that indicate Ollie’s difficulty adhering to social norms—the frequent shoplifting, the occasional disappearances, the lack of remorse—but its impact on the family unfolds more slowly. When Ollie gives Mom a tennis bracelet for her birthday, the family “all suspect[] the bracelet was stolen” (28), yet they say nothing. Amy also notes that, around this time, Ollie also gets a tattoo: “It was her way of marking herself as separate from us, her first step toward being free” (28). It also marks the moment at which the family, as a unit, begins to fracture, establishing the theme of Familial Trauma and the Power of Forgiveness. As Ollie drifts further away, Mom and Dad’s marriage disintegrates, and Amy is left to navigate the world on her own.
The title of Part 1, “Do Not Feed the Fish,” refers to Ollie’s impulse to disobey rules, no matter how trivial. At the Chinese restaurant where the family celebrates Mom’s birthday, Ollie tosses noodles into the koi pond in defiance of the posted sign. This incident highlights the performative nature of her defiance. Just as in the orchestration of the initial crisis—falling into the window—Ollie knows how to “stage” and “star” in her own personal dramas. Once again, however, the lens of Amy’s perspective shades the way the episode is framed; Amy perceives Ollie as behaving deliberately and in order to attract attention, but Amy’s insecurities make her a less than wholly reliable narrator.
The family’s tendency toward secrecy, prompted by shame (they call the psychiatric facility where Ollie is treated only “The Place”), serves as implicit permission to keep acting out. Though the novel will ultimately suggest that Ollie’s actions are not entirely under her control, it also explores the ways in which family can enable destructive and self-destructive behavior. This becomes particularly relevant at the end of Part 1: Dad “know[s] where Ollie is” (90), but he keeps the rest of the family in the dark in another example of secrecy.
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