The Sisters Antipodes - by Jane Alison (Paperback)

About the Book

"The Sisters Antipodes" is a unique window on the intimate devastations of family betrayal, in equal measure unsettling and engrossing. Two girls are thrown into a state of silent combat for the affections of their absent fathers--a contest that would prove tragic.

Book Synopsis

A gorgeous and deeply intimate memoir about families breaking apart

When Jane Alison was a child, her family met another that seemed like its mirror: a father in the Foreign Service, a beautiful mother, and two little girls, the younger two (one of them Jane) sharing a birthday. The families became inseparable almost instantly. Within months, however, affairs ignited between the adults, and before long the parents exchanged partners, then divorced, remarried, and moved on. Two pairs of girls were left in shock, a "silent, numb shock, like a crack inside stone, not enough to split it but inside, silently fissuring" that would prove tragic.

Review Quotes

PRAISE FOR THE SISTERS ANTIPODES

"'My family will not welcome this, ' predicts Jane Alison about her fairy tale-like memoir, The Sisters Antipodes, but her haunting story is one that truly compels telling. ... Alison's writing is pointed and poignant, sprinkled with breathtaking intuitions ... her memoir seems less a breach of family ties than an act of bravery." -- Elle

"An incomparable personal story exquisitely, stunningly told." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"From its calm, startling first sentence, this book is a clear-eyed account of a tumultuous childhood that happened, literally and figuratively, all over the place. Jane Alison may have felt insecure as a child, but she's incredibly secure as a writer; and it's this strange mixture precise and graceful description of profoundly unsettling events that underlies the alchemy of this book." -- Joan Wickersham, author of The Suicide Index

"Enormously compelling ... a truly unusual, harrowing journey of identity." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

PRAISE FOR NATIVES AND EXOTICS

"In Natives and Exotics, Jane Alison takes us where history books can't--or won't--go."--Washington Post Book World

PRAISE FOR THE LOVE-ARTIST

"A swirling parable that touches on the opposed sorceries of art and magic, on tyranny and rebellion, and on the struggle of male and female . . . Alison writes with the fevered pitch of nightmare and, as with the best nightmares, every detail is more real than reality."--Richard Eder, New York Times Book Review