Winner of the National Book Award by Jincy Willett

From the Publisher

Winner of the National Book Award, the long-awaited novel from the author of the acclaimed collection, Jenny and the Jaws of Life, is an unusual and wonderful novel that is somehow able to be at once bleak and hilarious, light-hearted and profound.

It's the story of two sisters. Abigail Mather is a woman of enormous appetites, sexual and otherwise. Her fraternal twin Dorcas couldn't be more different: she gave up on sex without once trying it, and she lives a controlled, dignified life of the mind. Though Abigail exasperates Dorcas, the two love each other; in fact, they complete each other. They are an odd pair, set down in an odd Rhode Island town, where everyone has a story to tell, and writers, both published and unpublished, carom off each other like billiard balls.

What is it that makes the two women targets for the new man in town, the charming schlockmeister Conrad Lowe, tall, whippet-thin and predatory? In Abigail and Dorcas he sees a new and tantalizing challenge. Not the mere conquest of Abigail, with her easy reputation, but a longer and more sinister game. A game that will lead to betrayal, shame and, ultimately, murder.

In her darkly comic and unsettling first novel, Jincy Willett proves that she is a true find: that rare writer who can explore the shadowy side of human nature with the lightest of touches.

The New York Times

Those who so fondly remember Ms. Willett's only other book, the long-out-of-print (but recently reissued) short-story collection Jenny and the Jaws of Life, will recognize her trademark wild acerbity and her preoccupation with strange, semitragic sibling connections. If her tart observational powers tend to sprawl over the course of this hugely funny but uneven novel (any book featuring an extended food fight is showing signs of strain, even if one of its characters has an eating disorder), this is a welcome comeback anyhow. Ms. Willett's satirical abilities remain deliciously undimmed. — Janet Maslin

Publishers Weekly

Willett's second book, after 1987's Jenny and the Jaws of Life (a collection of stories re-released last year with a foreword by David Sedaris), is a brilliant black comedy starring twins with antithetical dispositions and a handsome stranger with designs on both of them. Zaftig Abigail has turned promiscuity into an art form, while the literary, virginal Dorcas finds pleasure in the library-in its books, but also in the graffiti scrawled on its facade. Dorcas recounts Abigail's scandalous coming-of-age, marriage and eventual act of murder, weaving in excerpts from the book version penned later by Abigail and the sisters' friend, Hilda. Through Hilda and her writer husband, Guy, who considers Abigail "art itself," the twins become involved in a circle of artsy, intellectual and morally decadent friends. Abigail soon falls madly in love with Guy's old friend, the charming but sadistic Conrad, and ensnares herself in a destructive spiral of dieting, degradation and dependency. Through a fascinating interplay of violence and desire, Abigail's masochistic tendencies unfold (Dorcas had identified them as a teen: "I stopped hitting her only when I saw, through the stars of my rage, that she loved it"). It's hard to decide whom to cheer for most: Abigail for her triumphant revenge or Dorcas for her sense of humor, keen perception and restraint. Willett does a remarkable job of treating dark subject matter with shimmering playfulness, without diminishing its monstrosity. And embedded in her narrative is also a reflection on the subjective and sensual nature of written expression. Poignant and funny, mean and tender, Willett's novel is exuberantly original. (Oct.) Forecast: No, it hasn't won the National Book Award yet, but the cheeky title may fool a few unsuspecting readers. The Sedaris imprimatur gave new life to Willett's first book; her second (selected by Anna Quindlen as a Book-of-the-Month Club judge's pick) looks likely to build handily on the first's success. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

This dark but comic first novel (by the author of the short story collection Jenny and the Jaws of Life) is filled with evocative descriptions and pitch perfect dialog. Willett has devised a nicely original plot twist on the old chestnut of sibling rivalry and animated this novel with wonderfully realized characters. Ever since they were born, Abigail and Dorcas Mather have been polar opposites. Decorous Dorcas, who narrates the book, escapes into the world of reading, while Abigail, whom Dorcas refers to with bitterness and affection as "the warrior bawd," fulfills her appetites heedlessly, whether they're directed to sex or food. When the woman-hating ex-gynecologist Conrad Lowe comes to their small Rhode Island town, he is drawn to both sisters-to Dorcas for her restraint, intellect, and disdain for him, and to Abigail (whom he marries) for just what you might expect. As Conrad's perverse and malignant nature (this is one loathsome human being) is gradually revealed, tension among the sisters and Conrad reaches a fever pitch, and tragedy follows. From its opening lines to its satisfying conclusion, Willett's novel is enormously involving. For all public library fiction collections.-Nancy Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, Seattle Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Hidden behind that dumb title is a mildly creepy tale of misbegotten love and ultimate revenge, a second outing from Willett (Jenny and the Jaws of Life, 1987). The action is set in Rhode Island in the 1970s. Abigail and Dorcas Mather are twins, born in 1938, and polar opposites, as we are reminded repeatedly. Dorcas is mind, Abigail is body. Dorcas, the narrator, who will become a head librarian, decides at age 12 that she will reserve her sensuality for books: "I yearned for duty the way Abigail yearned to show her ass." And show it she does, one carousing night, to the football team, who promptly gang-rape her. Abigail is simply happy to be the center of attention. She'll go on to a brief first marriage and motherhood (the twins raise daughter Anna together) before becoming a "mailman" and poisoning half the marriages in town. On her rounds, she meets Guy De Vilbiss, world-famous poet, and his sycophantic wife Hilda; the pear-shaped Guy and sheeplike Hilda come across as unprepossessing freaks. Through this couple, the twins meet Conrad Lowe, who will be their nemesis. Most famous for the exposé of his mother, an evil Hollywood diva, Conrad is a manipulative sadist, " a ladies' man who hated ladies." While Dorcas reads him correctly, Abigail, though no masochist, falls in love with him, and Conrad relishes her as the perfect victim. On their honeymoon, Conrad chains the seriously overweight Abby to the bed and starves her. The marriage goes downhill from there, and Conrad even manages to humiliate the virtuous Dorcas sexually before Abby recovers her pride and runs Conrad over, eight times. Willett is trying for black comedy but doesn't find the right blend of light and dark. Abby'sflip-flops, Dorcas's puzzling celibacy, and Conrad's dated, Noel Coward-like Waspishness just don't help.

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