The Alphabet Sisters

April 18, 2005
McInerney's buoyant new novel chronicles the three Quinlan sisters' efforts to reconcile their combative past and reconnect when their grandmother, Lola, summons them home to South Australia for her 80th birthday party. Under the guardianship of Lola ("etiquette teacher, boot-camp mistress, and musical director"), Anna, Bett and Carrie had celebrated their youth on stage as the pop singing group the Alphabet Sisters. As adults, they stop speaking to each other when Carrie runs off with Bett's fiancé, Matthew. But after three years of silence, they heed Lola's call and resolve to make their peace. Anna, a voiceover actress and the eldest of the three, arrives from Sydney with her seven-year-old daughter, Ellen, who is scarred by a horrific accident, but without her absentee husband. Bett, the middle sister, flies in from London, where she does PR for a record company, while the youngest, Carrie, lives close to Lola, running a motel and suffering in her foundering marriage to Matthew. When Lola announces she's written a musical starring the Alphabet Sisters to benefit the local hospital, Anna, Bett and Carrie put aside their differences, rebuild their relationships and grow closer than ever before. In this heartening if predictable novel, three struggling women relearn how the bonds of sisterhood can steady them against life's ebb and flow. Agent, Christy Fletcher.