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“First and second wives are like sisters��. And isn’t that often the case! Fortunately my husband had an amicable and transparent divorce, but I distinctly remember past relationships and the obsessions I’ve felt with the past “Mrs. So-and-So.��

With Sisters, Lily Tuck aptly and skillfully captures this obsession. Her unnamed narrator spends ample time fantasizing about the first wife—what she was like, her habits and passions and how the twof them measure up o up. Not unlike Daphne Du Maurier’s unnamed second wife in Rebecca, the fantasy takes on a life of its own.

The beauty of the book is in Lily Tuck’s use of pronouns: “she�� refers to the ex and is always italicized, the two children they shared are typically referred to as “his daughter�� or “his son�� (and, in rare cases, “her daughter/son��, but never “their��.)

Of course, the relationship between our narrator and her husband stems from a betrayal, and so, as this short novel (a novella, really) careens towards its conclusion, we recognize that the author has a trick or two up her sleeve. The book only takes an hour or so to read and I wanted more time with these characters.