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Alice and Edith are sisters, soul mates, and archenemies.

Alice, the "good girl," is everything the stunning, wanton, and morally whimsical Edith is not. Except that both are expert manipulators — a power that is tested and exploited when the plane they are on is hijacked.

There's something decidedly strange about Bruno, one of the hijackers, not to mention his inept collaborators. When Alice is chosen to communicate with the hostage negotiator, Edith decides to take matters into her own hands by seducing Bruno. Alice finds herself growing smitten with the hostage negotiator, even as it becomes harder to distinguish her allies from her enemies in this elliptical airborne game show. When the hostages are taken to a hotel in a deserted Moroccan oasis town, Alice must confront the fact that if she wants to save herself, she will be forced to sacrifice someone she loves.

The Effect of Living Backwards is a comic, heartbreaking novel for our new and uncertain age.

• "The Effect of Living Backwards shows off a young novelist with talent to burn and a desire to push beyond the smug posturing of many of her literary peers." Stephen Metcalf, The Los Angeles Times
• "Insightful and challenging, this oddball story is unforgettable. Julavits succeeds admirably in making the transition from her prior dramatic novel...to this quick-witted black comedy." Library Journal
• "An absolute tour de force of apparently limitless imaginative ability, deep psychological insight, and astonishing verbal precision. In one fell swoop, Heidi Julavits establishes herself as the Scheherazade of the new Anti-Terror Age. Funny, unnerving, sophisticated, and dazzling in the range of its invention, The Effect of Living Backwards is a terrific and important addition to our literature." George Saunders, author of Pastoralia
• "Alice's self-loathing and her complex relationship with Edith provide the emotional core of a story that is savage and funny. The book is improbable, sure, but so wildly inventive that you hardly care." Taylor Antrim, The New York Times Book Review
• "Julavits has a unique eye for the details that tell a story....[Effect] is the product of a wide-ranging imagination and a prodigious writing talent that converts psychological insights into prose that is nothing short of fun." Robin Vidimos, The Denver Post