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I really like Lily Tuck’s prose style. She always writes a sparse and elegant sentence. In “Sisters”, she has taken that sparsity a few steps further. There is no spare text here, and the reader might be forgiven for thinking that perhaps a few more details might have been added. Several times this summer, I’ve felt like an author was under-estimating my intelligence. Tuck expects you to keep up. If you don’t, she will leave you behind!
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 [b:Rebecca|17899948|Rebecca|Daphne du Maurier|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386605169s/17899948.jpg|46663], 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.
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 [b:Rebecca|17899948|Rebecca|Daphne du Maurier|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386605169s/17899948.jpg|46663], 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.
:/ another book i flew through in a day but disappointed me. definitely could've pushed the envelope a bit more. *gordon ramsay voice* damn. what a shame
Got this one thinking it would be a thriller.....I was wrong lol
A one-sitting read (honestly you could read it two or three times in one sitting, it's that short) about insecurity in a 2nd marriage. Because it's more like a short story than a novel you'll be better off approaching it that way, but you'll still be wanting more because what there is is effective and interesting, particularly since this kind of book often has very little happen and in this one quite a lot ends up happening rather suddenly.