Helen Yglesias

A novel on a geriatric community in Miami Beach, featuring three Jewish sisters. It is narrated by the youngest, who is 85. She describes everyday activity, as well as attitudes to life and death, some people hoping to go soon, others fighting to stick around.

The girls

Rafael Yglesias

How She Died

The youngest of four sisters, a noted New York writer and critic, eighty-year-old Jenny has flown to Miami Beach to help her flamboyant sister Flora (the Sandra Bernhardt of the senior set) deal with their ailing older siblings. Eva, ninety-five, is still elegant and articulate: "They come if it's convenient," she ventures between wine toasts to her continuing years. Naomi is ever a beauty at ninety--and as vain as they come: "He's crazy about me, but I just brush him off." Despite their fragile bodies, they are women to be reckoned with--and Jenny and Flora have their hands full. As they strive to keep their sisters comfortable and cared for, an explosive history of sibling rivalry is reignited--one that illuminates each of their long lives, the tender joys and sorrows, and the bittersweet ache for life, especially in its twilight years. . . .

The Girls

Maddy Phillips, an elderly member of the world peace movement looks back on her childhood and her long involvement with causes

Helen Yglesias

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