Dual Citizens

Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist Ohlin (Inside) limns two half-sisters, good-student Lark and artistic wild-child Robin, who leave Montreal and their indifferent single mother for America. As Lark gets involved with documentary films and Robin rebels against the rigors of Juilliard, their bond ruptures. But in the end, sisterhood is what counts.

April 1, 2019
Two sisters navigate childhood and early adulthood together. As a child, Lark craves routine, and since no one else provides it, every Wednesday she scrounges coins from the couch cushions to buy a pizza for herself, her little sister, Robin, and their young single mother. Soon she's pretty much raising Robin herself. When Lark moves from their Montreal home to Massachusetts for college, Robin follows not long after. Quiet Lark studies film while Robin, the wilder of the pair, reveals herself as a piano prodigy. Ohlin's (Signs and Wonders, 2012, etc.) latest novel follows Lark and Robin from childhood to adulthood. Lark is the narrator, and she's a thoughtful, lucid guide. Still, the nature of the book, and the long time span it encompasses, results in a one-thing-after-another feel rather than a tightly woven story. Eventually the sisters move to New York, where Robin attends Juilliard. But then they have a kind of falling out, and Lark ends up cloistered in small-town Pennsylvania, working for an eccentric filmmaker, while Robin takes off traveling the world. The reasons for their falling out, while hinted at, are left ambiguous--frustrating, given how close they'd been before. Lark is a wonderfully developed character, well-nuanced, but the others--from Robin and their mother to Wheelock, the filmmaker--are more shadowy, even enigmatic. Ohlin's prose is lovely, and she asks smart, complicated questions not only about family, but also about the nature of narrative itself--whether in literature or in film--about the difference between artifice and truth and the meaning of nostalgia. Certain elements of the novel could have been developed further, but, all in all, Ohlin's latest is a lovely, deeply moving work. A lyrical account of the lives of two women, their failures and hopes, and ultimately their quiet redemption.

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April 8, 2019
Ohlin’s third novel (after Inside) is the engrossing, intricate tale of half-sisters Lark and Robin Brossard. In their Montreal childhood, Lark, a few years older, stands in for Robin’s mother, Marianne, who is mostly absent. Creative Robin is an excellent pianist while Lark is a quiet scholar. Lark wins a scholarship to a college near Boston, and her time there is the only period she isn’t tasked with being her sister’s keeper—until Robin appears at her doorstep during Lark’s second year. Lark becomes Robin’s guardian and the sisters move to New York: Lark to graduate film school as she hones her documentary filmmaking prowess and Robin to Juilliard for piano. Most of Lark’s time is spent working as an assistant for a reclusive director (who becomes her lover) and worrying after Robin, who drops out of school and aimlessly wanders. Later, in her mid-30s, Lark is desperate for a child, but her director-lover already has a grown daughter. When an accident upends Lark’s life, their roles reverse and Robin becomes caretaker of her sister. Ohlin smartly chooses a broad scope and expertly weaves Lark and Robin’s disparate lives into a singular thread, making for an exceptional depiction of the bond between sisters. Agent: Amy Williams, the Williams Company.

May 15, 2019
In her latest novel, Ohlin (Signs and Wonders, 2012) paints a luminous portrait of two half-sisters, Lark and Robin, daughters of a single mother in Montreal who flits from job to job and feels imprisoned by child-rearing. Lark, older by four years, thus becomes Robin's caregiver and, eventually, her legal guardian after Robin follows her to the small college in Massachusetts to which Lark received a full scholarship. Next, they move to a tiny apartment in New York City, where Lark is a graduate student in film, and the super-talented Robin studies piano at Juilliard. Over the years, Lark works for a documentary filmmaker, honing her skills and gradually becoming known for her own work and fulfilling a life-long dream. Robin takes a different direction, dropping out of Juilliard, wandering the world, and eventually establishing a wolf preserve in Canada's Laurentian Mountains. They connect on and off until Lark reaches out, finally becoming the one in need of help. Ultimately uplifting, Ohlin's touching, beautifully crafted story traces the unbreakable bond holding the sisters together, even when miles apart, through many changes.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)