HALF-LIFE OF A STOLEN SISTER

An antic novel follows the Brontë 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 Brontës, 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.