Finally, a Cure for Eldest Daughter Syndrome! On Alexandra Tanner’s “Worry”

Worry by Alexandra Tanner BIG SISTERS ARE bullies. Big sisters have trauma. Big sisters are tired. They've been diagnosed with “eldest daughter syndrome” —for which there is no known cure. Are you the eldest daughter of an immigrant household or are you normal? Take it from a certain corner of the internet and big sisters are schlepping the whole world on their shoulders—the burden of care that accompanies their gender, the pressure to succeed that plagues every firstborn, the warped combination of the two that makes them lonely, mediating, bossy little bitches, strapped with all the responsibility of motherhood but none of the respect. This is stupid. Like all memes, its relatability comes at the expense of precision. Big sisterhood is not some universally potent cross to bear, any more than flat feet or high cholesterol or being a Gemini. Which is to say, on its own, it tells us a little bit about a person, not everything. But if a Big Sister Manifesto did exist, one that captured the hypocrisies of the role along with the heroism, the joy along with the pain, then Alexandra Tanner has come as close as it gets with her debut novel, Worry (2024). The year is 2019 and the big sister in question is Jules Gold, a wannabe writer haunted by a tragicomic Greek chorus of alt-right, anti-vax mommy bloggers she follows from a burner account on Instagram. Perhaps Jules finds comfort in the company of these fascist fatales, who hit the same brain button of love-hate that she feels for her own mother: a Floridian boomer careening down the internet slip-and-slide of disinformation. Mother is, after all, the first object of love. Jules pretends that she follows these women for “research,” but even she sees through this glass facade. Because, beloved—research for what? She works a remote job from her apartment in Brooklyn, occasionally fucks her unemployed ex for weed gummies, and vaguely contemplates writing a brilliant essay on Jewish American assimilation but never quite gets around to it. In other words, Jules lives a boring, solitary life. Solitary, that is, […]