Small World
A Novel
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
“[A] brave and heartfelt book of truths.”—New York Times Book Review (A Group Text Pick and Editors' Choice)
A Boston.com Book Club Pick!
From bestselling author Laura Zigman comes a heartfelt novel about two offbeat and newly divorced sisters who move in together as adults—and finally reckon with their childhood
A year after her divorce, Joyce is settling into being single again. She likes her job archiving family photos and videos, and she’s developed a secret comforting hobby: trolling the neighborhood social networking site, Small World, for posts that help solve life’s easiest problems. When her older sister, Lydia, also divorced, calls to tell her she’s moving back east from Los Angeles after almost thirty years away, Joyce invites Lydia to move into her Cambridge apartment. Temporarily. Just until she finds a place of her own.
But their unlikely cohabitation—not helped by annoying new neighbors upstairs—turns out to be the post-divorce rebound relationship Joyce hadn’t planned on. Instead of forging the bond she always dreamed of having with Lydia, their relationship frays. And they rarely discuss the loss of their sister, Eleanor, who was significantly disabled and died when she was only ten years old. When new revelations from their family’s history come to light, will those secrets further split them apart, or course correct their connection for the future?
Written with wry humor and keen sensitivity, Small World is a powerful novel of sisterhood and hope—a reminder that sometimes you have to look back in order to move ahead.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Zigman's entrancing and thorny latest (after Separation Anxiety), two sisters confront the childhood death of their middle sister. After living in Los Angeles for 30 years, Lydia Mellishman moves in with her younger sister, Joyce, in Cambridge, Mass. Both women are divorced and childless, and are hopeful that rooming together will mean they can finally develop a bond. Lydia, however, remains her old bristly self: she's rude and inconsiderate of Joyce's feelings, especially after Lydia befriends their new neighbors Sonia and Stan, who disrupt Joyce's life with the noise of their illegal yoga studio. As the narrative flits between the present and the sisters' childhood, it becomes clear that their dynamic is fueled by having been neglected as children by their mother, Louise. Despite Joyce's stutter and Lydia's dyslexia, Louise directed her attention toward their sister Eleanor, who had cerebral palsy and died from the flu when she was 10. Later, Louise continued focusing on advocacy work for children with special needs. After Joyce's job as an archivist leads her to someone from Louise's circle, Lydia shares a secret, and the sisters find an opportunity for reckoning. Zigman does a stellar job of creating well-rounded characters, and a satisfying ending tops off her well-crafted paean to sisterhood. Readers will love this.
