Immersions

Frances has spent her whole career in the shadow of her older sister Charley, a rising star of New York's modern dance world. Then Charley fell for Johnny, an elusive trust fund artist, and married him. A few years into a stormy marriage, she abruptly quit her company and entered an enclosed convent in Provence. She took the name Sister Anne, cut off all contact with the outside world, and left her stunned family behind.

Frances, also a dancer, feels lost without the sister who defined her. She has distrusted Johnny since the first awkward time they met, and she is convinced he is the reason Charley gave up both her art and her family. When she learns he is back in New York, she contacts him, hoping for answers and half hoping for a fight.

What follows is an uncertain, charged intimacy. Each of them probes for the other's secrets, and the closer they get, the deeper they go. Kyle McCarthy's short, dark novel pairs the rivalry of sisters with an obsessive love, drawing on the feel of Black Swan and the Bluebeard tale. It is also a story of sexual coming-of-age, about the ties of desire and loyalty, and it asks how wanting someone can both make us and undo us.