Synopses & Reviews
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
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
Synopsis
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 twoone of them Janesharing 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 partnersdivorced, 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 fathersa contest that, as this gorgeous, piercing memoir recounts, would prove tragic.
About the Author
JANE ALISON is the author of three novels: The Love-Artist, The Marriage of the Sea, and Natives and Exotics. She teaches in the MFA programs at the University of Miami and Queens University in Charlotte.