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  • Published: 3 March 2014
  • ISBN: 9780552776592
  • Imprint: Black Swan
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 528
  • RRP: $22.99

Sisterland

The striking Sunday Times bestseller




From the bestselling author of American Wife, a novel about twin sisters who share a special gift, and the enduring bond between them. A Richard & Judy Book Club pick.

BY THE SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF RODHAM and AMERICAN WIFE
'A work of psychological genius' OBSERVER
_______________________________-

Identical twins, Kate and Violet are about as unlike as two peas from the same pod can be. Except in one respect - they share a hidden gift. But after Kate inadvertently reveals their secret when they are thirteen years old, their lives are set on diverging paths.

Twenty years later Kate, a devoted wife and mother, has settled down in the suburbs to raise her two young children. Violet is single, and lives a much more flamboyant and eccentric life. Then one day Violet ignites a media storm by predicting a major earthquake in the St Louis area where they live.

As the day Violet has announced for the earthquake draws nearer, Kate must attempt to repair her fraught relationship with her sister, and to face truths about herself she has long tried to deny.

  • Published: 3 March 2014
  • ISBN: 9780552776592
  • Imprint: Black Swan
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 528
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

Curtis Sittenfeld

Curtis Sittenfeld pulls no punches in her scathing and hilarious indictments of the American middle classes. Her Sunday Times bestselling novel American Wife was longlisted for the Orange Prize, as was her debut novel Prep. Her other books include The Man of My Dreams, Sisterland, Eligible, the acclaimed short story collection You Think It, I’ll Say It and her latest novel Rodham. Her stories have appeared in the New Yorker, Esquire, Oprah Magazine and the New York Times magazine. Sittenfeld is also the guest editor for the 2020 Best American Short Stories anthology. She lives with her family in the American Mid-West. Follow her on Twitter @CSittenfeld

Also by Curtis Sittenfeld

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Praise for Sisterland

A work of psychological genius and has a wonderful twist at the end...a literary pageturner...There's a fizzing, daring originality to Sisterland that draws you in and takes your breath away.

Observer

Engrossing.

Woman & Home

Wise and empathetic, this is a book with a great sense of humour and an even bigger heart.

Glamour

Engagingly messy mixture of the comic and the sombre...a beautifully delicate way of describing both familial and conjugal love.

Guardian

Curtis Sittenfeld has a knack for capturing characters so vividly it's uncanny...brilliantly evokes small-town Eighties adolescence...the gripping denouement is expertly carried out.

Daily Mail

Sittenfeld's debut Prep was one of the best novels about adolescence written this century, and it is here, when dealing with the competitve world of teenage girls, that Sittenfeld is at her best in Sisterland...Like Kate Akinson with her recent Life After Life, Sittenfeld is a reliably realistic (if slightly dreamy) novelist who has here tackled a somewhat far-fetched concept outside her normal range and displayed impressive comfort in doing so.

Sunday Times

Most people I know who have read anything by Curtis sittenfeld would read anything else the woman wrote, me included...Suddenly, trivial details become exquisite insights into class, entitlement, love and your place in the world...Fans will instantly be swept along by Sittenfeld's confident, page-turning writing and sharp eye.

The Times

A joy to read...[for] Sittenfeld's ability to get under the skin of complicated, contradictory characters, capturing the anxieties, challenges and compromises of everyday life, love and parenthood so that ... you will find yourself nodding at the day-to-day dynamics and thinking, "Yes, that's exactly how it is."

Sunday Express

Dazzlingly original, this absorbing book, which is at heart about family ties, fizzes with energy and will grip you to the last page.

Sunday Mirror

An intelligent, quietly devastating roller coaster of a read.

Metro

Will this be a novel turning on supernatural powers and a natural disaster or something else altogether? Without giving the end away one can say that it is more than anything a wonderful anatomy of family life.

Daily Express

Sittenfeld’s confident no-frills style belies the complexities of her characters and their relationships.

New York Times Book Review

The questions it raises about self-fulfilling prophecies remain compelling...a modern American fable about tempting fate.

New Statesman

Novelists get called master storytellers all the time, but Sittenfeld really is one.

Washington Post

Psychologically vivid...Sisterland is a testament to the author's growing depth and assurance as a writer.

Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

A must-read: the best dissection of a life spent among small children I've ever read.

Viv Groskop, Observer (Books of the Year)

This assured and confident novel successfully combines the high-concept fantasy of Bewitched with the high-brow realism of Updike or Tyler

Independent

Fans will be swept along by Sittenfeld's confident, page-turning writing

The Times