The Sisters Antipodes

A gorgeous, piercing memoir of two families linked through betrayal - and of the fierce childhood will to survive in them.'(Alison's) haunting story is one that truly compels telling ... Pointed and poignant, sprinkled with breathtaking intuitions ... an act of bravery.' - ElleWhen 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, quietly fissuring'. And Jane and her stepsister were thrown into a state of wordless combat for the love of their fathers. The sisters' contest, recounted by Jane Alison with stunning emotional insight, is waged throughout less-than-innocent childhoods - and ends in a tragedy that is at the same time unthinkable and inevitable.'Jane Alison writes about displacement, identity, belonging, fear, and, perhaps most incredibly, rivalry. She may have felt insecure as a child, but she's incredibly secure as a writer; and it's this strange mixture - precise and graceful descriptions of profoundly unsettling events - that underlies the alchemy of this book.' - Joan Wickersham, author of The Suicide Index'An incomparable personal story exquisitely, stunningly told.' - Kirkus Reviews'Enormously compelling ... a truly unusual, harrowing journey of identity.' - Publishers' Weekly