The Sisters Sweet
A Novel
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4.3 • 6 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
A young woman in a vaudeville sister act must learn to forge her own path after her twin runs away to Hollywood in this “elegant, immersive . . . exploration of sisterhood, identity, ambition and betrayal” (The New York Times).
“A beautifully told coming-of-age story that embraces life with a galloping energy and irresistible curiosity.”—Maggie Shipstead, bestselling author of Great Circle
Leaving was my sister’s choice. I would have to make my own.
All Harriet Szász has ever known is life onstage with her sister, Josie. As “The Sisters Sweet,” they pose as conjoined twins in a vaudeville act conceived of by their ambitious parents, who were once themselves theatrical stars. But after Josie exposes the family’s fraud and runs away to Hollywood, Harriet must learn to live out of the spotlight—and her sister’s shadow. As Josie’s star rises in California, the Szászes fall on hard times. Striving to keep her struggling family afloat, Harriet molds herself into the perfect daughter. She also tentatively forms her first relationships outside her family and begins to imagine a life for herself beyond the role of dutiful daughter that she has played for so long. Finally, Harriet must decide whether to honor her mother, her father, or the self she’s only beginning to get to know.
Full of long-simmering tensions, buried secrets, questionable saviors, and broken promises, this is a story about how much we are beholden to others and what we owe ourselves. Layered and intimate, The Sisters Sweet heralds the arrival of an accomplished new voice in fiction.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this slow-moving but imaginative debut, Weiss introduces readers to a desperate show business family. In 1918, Lenny and Maude Szász scheme to break the family back into the business after Maude was sidelined by an injury, and land on a plan that sees them disguising their twin five-year-old daughters, Harriet and Josie, as conjoined twins, and conceiving of a vaudeville act called the Siamese Sweets. For a decade, the girls are not allowed out of their home unattached, and as they become famous around the Midwest, it becomes clear that Josie is the star. When Josie abandons the family for Hollywood in a dramatic break from Harriet on stage at age 15, Harriet is left to discover her identity. Woven in are Lenny and Maude's backstories—his alcoholism and hardships as a set designer, and Maude's time in the spotlight as well as the baby she abandoned. Harriet, self-described as "the family dud, the tragically abandoned second fiddle, a nobody stunned by her sister's magnificence," is unfortunately passive, and while Weiss explores the intriguing theme of a woman understood only in relation to others, Harriet doesn't exactly catapult the plot forward. Still, there are plenty of rich details, and each scene is well drawn. Weiss is clearly talented, even if this isn't the perfect start.
