Sisters

Written by Lily Tuck

Narrated by Gabra Zackman

Tuck's unnamed narrator lives with her new husband, his two teenagers, and the unbanishable presence of his first wife—known only as she. Obsessed with her, our narrator moves through her days presided over by the all-too-real ghost of the first marriage, fantasizing about how the first wife lives her life. Will the narrator ever equal she intellectually, or ever forget the betrayal that lies between them? And what of the secrets between her husband and she, from which the narrator is excluded? The daring and precise build up to an eerily wonderful denouement is a triumph of subtlety and surprise.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Highbridge Company
• Release date: Sep 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781681687179

Lily Tuck

Born in Paris, LILY TUCK is the author of four previous novels: Interviewing Matisse, or the Woman Who Died Standing Up; The Woman Who Walked on Water; Siam, or the Woman Who Shot a Man, which was nominated for the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction; and The News from Paraguay, winner of theNational Book Award. She is also the author of the biography Woman of Rome: A Life of Elsa Morante. Her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker and are collected in Limbo and Other Places I Have Lived. Lily Tuck divides her time between Maine and New York City.

[josephcamilleri-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It barely took me an hour to read "Sisters", Lily Tuck's latest novel (novella? short story?). Written in brief paragraphs, smoothly flowing in an almost stream-of-consciousness style, it makes for an entertaining and deceptively easy read. In reality, in this book there is so much that is subtly suggested and cunningly implied, that it packs in its few pages the effect of a novel thrice its length.The unnamed narrator's marriage is haunted by the presence of her new husband's first wife - ominously referred to throughout as she - whom he divorced to marry the narrator. After some initial awkwardness, the narrator manages to maintain a decent relationship with her husband's son and daughter and, to a lesser extent, also with she/her. But we soon learn that beneath the genteel veneer, there is a lurking obsession, an all-consuming jealousy.The bare bones of the plot will inevitably draw comparisons with Du Maurier's Rebecca, as both the author and her erudite narrator are very much aware. Indeed, there are knowing references to Du Maurier's novel which are quickly turned on their head ("I dreamed - not that I went back to Manderley - that I was in a big city..."). Similarly, that novel's dark, Gothic atmosphere is here replaced by a different sort of darkness - the darkness of black humour and biting satire, as we witness the making and unmaking of a contemporary marriage. Brilliant, witty stuff; sparkling like the champagne which propels the book to its denouement.An electronic version of this novel was provided through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

[John · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

A total waste of an hour, I didn't really see the point.

[M. Malcolm · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Good narration on the part of the voice actor. Insightful narrative.

[kimmeyer-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I can see the craft in this, but it's not to my liking.

[dreesie-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This short and spare novel describes—from the point of view of the wife—a marriage. From their meeting, to marrying, to her helping raise his two teenagers, through the marriage of the daughter. His first wife, called "she" or "your mom" throughout, is always there in the background. There for the kids, there getting alimony payments, at family events--and the inauspicious start to the marriage foreshadows the end.

This novel very much reminds me of Fever Dream, even though the stories and themes themselves are very different.
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Read this at the library while my car was in for a construction staple in the sidewall and a regular service. I had no book and no charger on me, but this was perfect, I didn't even need to check it out.

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

3.5 Prose that is simple, exact and elegant. An inside look at a second marriage, and a wife that tries to fit herself into the shape left by the divorced wife. One of the quickest books I have read lately as these are snippets, snapshots, of different observations. The second wife is our narrator, and it is from her we find out about the husband, herself, she has a remarkable memory for places and things. The children from the first marriage, their conversations. When she talks about the first wife the she is always in italics, in this way her jealousy of the former marriage is noted. Almost dreamlike, but the ending comes quicky, jolts us out of our revelry.

ARC from Netgalley