Mammy had her excape in her imaginary lovers, we children did not have much excape in the winter, but when the summer came there was the sun and river, some mornings I would get up at five and row up the river before anyone else had been on it, and the larks would be singing and the cows standing together in the little bays where the water was shallow, and everything would seem so good and clean, I felt I wanted to cry with so much hapiness' The first of Barbara Comyns's eight novels, SISTERS BY A RIVER is told through the eyes (and spelling) of a young girl. Vivid, funny and quite unique, it evokes the author's own extraordinary childhood. Some of the whimsical chapters: The Roly Poly Field, God in the Billiard Room, The Maids' Lav, It Wasn't Nice in the Dressing Room, As If She Had No Ears at All, The Field that Was Stiff with Skeletons, Gather Your Hats While You May, Aunts Arriving.