Half-Life of a Stolen Sister

February 1, 2023

Cantor, who's won good attention for her two previous novels, e.g., Good on Paper, enters wholeheartedly into the novelist's game with a new work about the Bront� sisters. Partly fact-based, partly wildly inventive, it varies in setting and style to bring us three different sisters and their writing processes. Prepub Alert.

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May 15, 2023
An antic novel follows the Bront� siblings through an alternate version of their lives. Cantor transports her characters (here called the Bronteys), complete with 19th-century diction and sensibilities, into a hazily 20th-century version of what seems to be--though it is never explicitly labeled--New York. Her skewed take on their lives plays fair with their limited life spans and general relationships to each other and the world while throwing them into a setting replete with bagels, McMansions, subways, television, and soy milk. The structure of the novel is playful, patching together email exchanges--including deleted emails--letters, scenes from plays, passages from memoirs of all the Bronteys, an advertisement for a replacement wife from father Paddy ("I am an upright man with a rent-controlled apartment," he notes), plenty of time with older sisters Maria and Elizabeth, who died as children, and some not unexpected scorn for feckless "Only Boy" Branwell. While everyone in the family, and several characters outside it, gets a say, Charlotte is granted the largest amount of time on the page, and not just because she survives longer than most of the others. Her love affair with a teacher (here transposed to Rome) and her relationships with several later, though not as beloved, suitors take up a good deal of the narrative space. Emily, who will be an object of fascination for many readers, remains largely opaque apart from a few cryptic passages. The novels themselves, with names like The Heights and Surely! receive far less attention than the lives. While it's possible the novel could stand on its own, it will be best appreciated by readers with a relatively thorough knowledge of the Bront�s, who will be able to spot the gaps and parallels between real biographical events and their fictional transformations. Intriguingly odd with a few surprising insights.

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May 15, 2023
Maria Bront�'s young children were desolate after she passed away, followed all too soon by her two oldest daughters. Aunt Branwell and three surviving sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, are left to carry the burden of managing the house and earning an income to support their father and brother, Branwell. Despite loss and hardships, the siblings create imaginary worlds and express themselves in writing, providing insights into the family's struggles and the bonds that sustain them. Cantor (Good on Paper, 2016) pulls out all the stops to make this a unique and unforgettable reading experience that is as difficult to describe as it is to set down. Mixing historical and contemporary time periods together in unexpected ways, the author has the siblings navigate a hybrid world with varying degrees of success, leaving room for conjecture. The range of narrative styles is thoughtfully executed and intriguing. Clever without straining, true to the basic facts of the Bront� family history, and emotionally compelling as the children grow while continuously facing new obstacles, Cantor's unusual tale can be read and reread for endless diversion.

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May 15, 2023
Cantor (Good on Paper) spins a free-ranging and intriguing tale of a literary family inspired by the Brontës that incorporates a mix of forms and anachronistic details. Maria, Eliza, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne Brontey grow up in early 19th-century Yorkshire, England. Their mother dies soon after Anne is born, and their father, a pastor, is a kindly but inattentive parent. After Maria and Eliza die from an illness, their aunt reluctantly takes charge of a dirty and chaotic household, while their father lectures on morality. Kept out of school, the surviving sisters are self-educated, visiting museums and libraries to learn about ancient Greece, famous historical figures, and mythology, elements they use in their elaborate world of play. Cantor’s frisky and time-collapsing blend of forms elevates the experiment above run-of-the-mill Brontë fodder. In one chapter, titled “Send. Delete,” Charlotte, away working unhappily as a nanny, uses her charge’s computer to draft a series of emails addressed to her family back home; in another, a publisher of three pseudonymous authors fields questions from a radio interviewer about the authors’ identities. These flights of fancy blend seamlessly with passages written in a Victorian style, such as an account of Charlotte and Emily studying art history in Rome, where Charlotte agonizes over unrequited love. For Brontë fans, this is a jolt of fresh air.