Apparently Joyce Maynard (far right) isn’t entirely done talking about J.D. Salinger yet: In the September issue of More, hitting newsstands tomorrow, Maynard discusses her relationship with her older sister, Rona, and reveals how her relationship with Salinger exacerbated their sibling rivalry. “I have no memory of resenting my sister when we were young,” Joyce recalls, “but I guess she resented me.” Which is why, one might extrapolate, Rona essentially blocked her sister from spending time with their dying mother years later. Except that the magazine also runs a counter-essay from Rona, who admits she probably handled that situation pretty badly but was trying to think of her mother’s needs; she dwells on other aspects of the relationship, too, before reaching the amiable conclusion that “we’ve always been more equal than I knew, both shaped by the same endearingly troubled family as no one but the two of us will ever comprehend.” Well, how did you think an article for a women’s magazine was going to end, with the two of them at each other’s throats still?
Meanwhile, Rebecca Wells of Ya-Ya Sisterhood fame tells Seventeen readers it’s okay not to look fabulous every day. She explains how the obsession over always appearing to be at her best kept her from getting her chronic Lyme disease, which drained her so completely of energy that she didn’t have the strength to get dressed, let alone deal with her complicated beauty regimen (“haircuts, colors, monthly eyebrow waxing, and lash tinting,” among other things). “Now I’m well enough to doll myself up and sashay around when I feel like it,” Wells reports, “but I’ll never ruin another day of good health obsessing over my hair… I am perfectly imperfect…and that is good enough.”