Losing Charlotte

November 23, 2009
Clay's promising if uneven debut scrutinizes the complicated relationship between two very different sisters. Knox Bolling has always resented her beautiful sister, Charlotte, and blames Charlotte for her situation. She's 34, living on her parents' Kentucky horse farm and unable to commit to her boyfriend's repeated marriage proposals. Charlotte, on the other hand, has moved to New York City, where she dabbles in acting and holds a series of dead-end jobs before meeting money manager Bruce Tavert, who, after a brief courtship, proposes. Their intention to start a family, however, proves deadly for Charlotte, who dies in childbirth, leaving Bruce with premature twin boys and providing Knox with an opportunity to explore life outside of Kentucky by coming to New York to help Bruce. Things quickly get creepy as Knox tries out life as Charlotte, and the narrative takes on a stark gothic eeriness. New York is more difficult than Kentucky for Clay to nail down, and some of Knox's late-book behavior verges on Fatal Attraction
–type obsession before backtracking into something just short of prudent uplift. It's a strange mix—not altogether unappealing, but not a knockout, either.

February 15, 2010
Clay's debut novel has plenty to say about familial relationships in general and sisterhood in particular.

The two sisters in a well-to-do Kentucky horse-raising family couldn't be more different, at least from the perspective of the younger. Charlotte is older, prettier, more daring and impulsive. She sneaks away whenever she can and moves away, ultimately to New York, as soon as possible. Knox takes the other role—dependable, dutiful, solid, yet simmering with resentment at the sister who has aroused her jealousy and left her with their parents. There"was a familiar rhythm between Knox and Charlotte, or had been in the years since they'd become grown women who nevertheless remembered what it was like to hurl childish invective at each other, to love and hate each other so nakedly, and so simultaneously, that the mere existence of the other could serve as an intolerable, maddening offense." Things change, or at least show the potential for change, when Charlotte marries a man she barely knows,"Yuppie Bruce," with whom she experiences a difficult conception and succumbs to complications in childbirth. So both her husband and her family have lost Charlotte, as have her baby twin sons, depriving the novel of the only character who has shown the possibility for dimensions beyond clich. Flashbacks keep Charlotte's memory alive while confusing the chronology of the narrative, as Knox and Bruce, who barely know each other, stumble toward more reflective insights into themselves, each other and Charlotte."It was a mystery, having a sister," realizes Knox, now that she no longer has one. Meanwhile, her parents and her fianc (who works for Knox's father and whose affectionate name for her is"Ugly") offer little surprise or revelation.

The main problem with this domestic melodrama is that the absence of the title character leaves a big hole not only in the family dynamic but in the plot. Like her family, the reader misses Charlotte.

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December 15, 2009
In her arresting debut, "New Yorker" contributor Clay tackles sibling relationships, familial bonds, duty, and honor. Readers meet two sisters with a strained relationship: Knox, who lives on her family's Kentucky horse farm, and Charlotte, who lives in New York City. When the unthinkable happens and Charlotte dies from a hemorrhage after childbirth, Knox leaves her comfortable, familiar life behind to help Charlotte's husband, Bruce, a virtual stranger, care for his twin sons. As they work together through grief, loss, and exhaustion, Knox finds a way to honor the sister she never really knew. VERDICT Highly recommended for those who enjoy themes about family and sibling relationships and fans of women's fiction à la Elizabeth Berg, Anne Lamott, Alice Hoffman, and Jodi Picoult.Shaunna Hunter, Hampden-Sydney Coll., VA

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2010
Knox grew up in the shadow of her more daring and beautiful sister, Charlotte. While Charlotte left their Kentucky home to live in New York, Knox stayed behind, occupying a cottage on the familys horse farm, eating dinner with her parents every night, carrying on a desultory romance with one of her fathers employees. Everything changes when Charlotte dies giving birth to twins. Knox takes it upon herself to fill some of the void, moving in with Charlottes husband, Bruce, and helping with the babies. The conventional ending might have been for Knox and Bruce to end up married, but Knox learns how to move ahead in her own life instead. Although a great deal of the novels success depends on our understanding Charlottes power, she remains a cipher, and we never fully understand the hold she has over Knox. Still, there is enough strong writing in this first novel to make it an auspicious debut.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)