Sisters

by Brigitte Lozerec'h, Ms Betsy Wing (Translator)

Mathilde Lewly--a female painter at the dawn of the twentieth century--has achieved notoriety among the Parisian avant-garde. She and her husband, also a talented young artist, pursue their separate visions side by side in a Clichy atelier, galvanized by the artistic ferment that surrounds them. But the couple are threatened by the shadow of Mathilde's little sister, Eug�nie: since the two girls' sudden departure from their native England, Eug�nie has been determined to vault the eight years separating her from Mathilde. Now, devoured by envy and haunted by a past she never actually experienced, the "little one" hurls herself into the artistic and personal life of her elder sister. It is the birth of a fierce rivalry, an emotional tug-of-war, played out against the bohemian riot of the last century's wildest years. But will the First World War's sudden and brutal eruption allow Mathilde to escape this intimate conflict and achieve her destiny?

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Novels, Literary Fiction

202 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Dhiyanah]

The plot flew smoothly; quiet and strained in all expected places, but fell short. The book's strength lies in the voice of the narrator/main character. Mathilde is very, very familiar (as a result I have a soft spot for her). Her descriptions are lovely, her contemplative passages are sharp -- she does brilliantly in juxtaposing the internal with the external.

I adore the first half of the book the most, feeling the themes were well explored before the plot started pushing into passages. The themes that struck me, the ones I'd go back to fish out quotes/passages for: grief, artistic process, women's roles in society, psychological violence in familial relationships.