[ad_1]
SISTER SWEET
by Elizabeth Weiss
Elizabeth Weiss’ debut novel “The Sisters Sweet” is an elegant, gripping family saga set amidst the hypocritical culture of early 20th century vaudeville. Leonard Szasz, an unemployed set designer, persuades his wife to create an action that will bring them back to show business. family as she likes to remind him. They will dress their twin daughters, Harriet and Josephine, in elaborate costumes and parade across the country as conjoined twins who sing and dance. Their mother, Maude, a former showgirl, reluctantly accepts the idea, albeit less enthusiastically—with no other financial prospects.
When they start, the girls are 5 years old, beautiful and attractive, and acting takes off in no small part thanks to Josie’s natural talent and charisma. “Josie was smiling wildly, theatrically. I felt a strong desire to perform, and I knew it was Josie’s desire first, that she had communicated it to me,” Harriet says of her onstage debut. The girls have a twin, almost psychic bond; they are adopting this new initiative, but for different reasons. And this is the first, invisible break of the bond between them. Harriet performs to please her sister, to stay connected. Josie does this to a frenzied burst of applause, and her thirst for more grows in proportion to their action.
The attendant, observant daughter, Harriet, is keen to keep the family secret, carefully guarding her public identity even as the girls jockey for a special position, each indulging in whatever love they can get from their eccentric fathers and introverted mothers. “Backstage, my mom smoothed our hair, but with an unusual tenderness in her touch that made me want to bend over her fingers like a domesticated cat.” But the lion’s share of Harriet’s devotion is reserved for her sister, and Harriet never suspects that Josie is leaving behind the life imposed on them.
It is the reckless and selfish Josie who refuses to suppress her burgeoning ambition. At the age of 15, she dramatically exposes her act as a fraud and flees to Hollywood, where she transforms herself into big screen star Josephine Wilder.
[ad_2]
Source link