Two Sisters

by Mary Hogan Narrated by Randye Kaye

Overview

The third child in a family that wanted only two, Muriel Sullivant has always been an outsider. She worships her beautiful blond sister, Pia, and envies the close bond she shares with their mother, Lidia. Growing up in their shadow, Muriel believes that if she keeps all their secrets-and she knows plenty, outsiders always do-they will love her too. Now an adult, Muriel has accepted the disappointments in her life. With her fourth-floor walk-up apartment and entry-level New York City job, she never will measure up to Pia and her wealthy husband, their daughter, and their suburban Connecticut dream home.



One day, Pia shows up to visit and shares devastating news that Muriel knows she cannot tell-a secret that will force her to come to terms with the past and help her see her life and her family in unexpected new ways.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Book clubs will find much to discuss in this fraught, fascinating family drama." ---Booklist

From the Publisher - AUDIO COMMENTARY

"Book clubs will find much to discuss in this fraught, fascinating family drama." —Booklist

Fitness magazine

Readers will dig the dramatic twists and sibling rivarly at the heart of Mary Hogan’s Two Sisters.

Booklist

Book clubs will find much to discuss in this fraught, fascinating family drama.

New York Journal of Books

Gripping and thought provoking, Two Sisters digs deep into emotions getting to the heart of family dynamics.

Jill Smolinski

Exquisitely written, heartbreakingly honest, TWO SISTERS is the kind of story that will keep you turning pages into the night. A joy to read.

Lauren Grodstein

Mary Hogan’s Two Sisters is a mesmerizing journey into the secrets that can split apart brothers and sisters, children and their parents. It’s the perfect read for anyone who knows the way families can hold you up while breaking your heart.

Adriana Trigiani

a page turning novel that holds you in its tender, often hilarious and poignant grip from page one. [...] Loaded with emotion, laughter, surprise and ultimately the message of the fragility of life, TWO SISTERS will burn through the sisterhood of book clubs like a fever.

Kirkus Reviews

2014-02-20
In Hogan's first adult fiction (she has sevenYA titles to her credit), the poisonous relationship between two sisters, and the family dysfunction that grew it, is examined with style and sensitivity. Muriel had her Sunday planned: She would hole up for hours of binge TV-watching and a tub of popcorn in her Manhattan apartment. But then Pia calls, and Muriel's day is transformed. As she waits for her older sister's arrival from Connecticut, Muriel recalls a childhood marked by exclusion and petty cruelties; her older sister was perfect, and their mother, Lidia, made no effort to hide her preference in daughters. Lidia, beautiful and perpetually dissatisfied with her life in Queens, had forced a shotgun marriage on the girls' father, Owen, an engineer who preferred tinkering in the basement to talking with his family. Little has changed in the ensuing years; their parents are remote, and brother Logan has abandoned the family altogether. Pia, with sculpted hair and body, lives in the rarefied air of Westport with a financier husband and accomplished daughter. Muriel is an assistant casting agent with few friends or romantic prospects; she is the moon to Pia's sun. But when Pia comes for that Sunday visit, it's to confess a secret—she's dying of cancer and has come to the city to buy a dress to be buried in. Muriel is good at keeping secrets (she never told anyone that Pia nearly killed her on a beach outing or that her mother was having an affair with their priest), and now Pia is asking her to keep this news from Lidia. When the narrative shifts from Muriel's perspective to Pia's, the malicious older sister is humanized, if not entirely redeemed. Pia's battle with cancer is vivid and heartbreaking, Muriel's guilt (for not being lovable) is tragic, though nothing compares to Lidia's final, scandalous confession. Hogan's characters may be too broadly drawn (one sister so callous, the other so naïve), but she creates a gripping narrative of a fractured family.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170921652
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	09/22/2014
Edition description:	Unabridged

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