Immersions
A Novel
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A Most Anticipated Book of 2026 from LitHub
Black Swan meets Bluebeard in this novel of sisterly rivalry and obsessive love set in the New York City dance scene.
Frances’s older sister Charley was a star of the modern dance world. But just as she was ascending, she fell in love with Johnny, an enigmatic trust fund artist, and married him. A few years into their turbulent marriage, Charley mysteriously leaves her dance company and joins an enclosed convent in Provence. Much to the shock of her family, she changes her name to Sister Anne and cuts off contact with the outside world.
Frances, a dancer herself, grew up in the shadow of her brilliant sister and is suddenly unmoored without her. From their first uneasy meeting, Frances has distrusted Johnny. Now, she is certain he had something to do with her sister’s abrupt abandonment of her art and family. When Frances discovers that Johnny has returned to New York, she reaches out to him, looking for answers and seeking confrontation. The two plunge into an ambiguous intimacy—diving ever deeper, as each tries to unlock the other's secrets. A slender and twisted tale of sexual coming-of-age and of the deep bonds of lust and loyalty, Immersions asks how we are made—and unmade—by desire.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
McCarthy (Everyone Knows How Much I Love You) offers a tender yet tense story of estranged sisters who grew up studying ballet. Frances Garbinski, now in college in New York City, was unmoored when her older sister, Charley, drifted away from a successful dance career after a neck injury. For the past six years, Charley has secluded herself in a French convent. When Frances hears that Charley's ex-husband, Johnny Fitcher, is in town, she tracks him down, believing he had mistreated Charley somehow and bears responsibility for her withdrawal. ("Sometimes we blame dance, but mostly we blame Johnny," she narrates.) To her surprise, she bonds with Johnny over Charley's absence, but hesitates to forge a friendship, especially after another one of Johnny's exes accuses him on social media of bullying and gaslighting her. However, when he invites her to visit his family's vacation home on Cup Island in the Long Island Sound, Frances cannot resist, determined to unravel the mystery of Charley's withdrawal. There, she gradually tests the waters of a potential romance with Johnny, which leads her closer to answers about her sister. McCarthy writes astutely about dance as a double-edged sword that impassions the sisters but also damages them, and she mirrors this duality in her portrayal of Frances's push-pull dynamic with Johnny. The result is magnetic.
