Alison, Jane / Sisters Antipodes

The Sisters Antipodes is a unique window on the intimate devastations of family betrayal, in equal measure unsettling and engrossing.
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.

With so much in common, the two families became almost instantly inseparable. Within months, affairs had ignited between the adults, and before long the pairs had exchanged partners--divorced, remarried, and moved on.  As if in a cataclysm of nature, two families were ripped asunder, and two new ones were formed. 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." And Jane and her stepsister were thrown into a state of silent combat for the affections of their absent fathers--a contest that, as this gorgeous, piercing memoir recounts, would prove tragic.
 

9780547247731

Paperback

April, 2010

Alison, Jane / Sisters Antipodes