“A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse.”
'
the SONG OF SOLOMOn
'

'Sister' is a tale of mad love for slack youth, a mesmerizing tale with the sure grip and unstoppable momentum of a dream.

Dazed, seventeen-year-old Wilson leaves his Nebraska home to wander blindly. He ends up in a comfy, small Mississippi town; stumbles into employment as a gardener; turns the earth at one special house, occupied by the Miller family – mother, father, two teenage daughters. Beyond this point the novel’s world is encompassed by the house, and it looms large. Wilson loses his home, but cannot quit ‘his’ garden, so he lives in the crawl space under the shed until his lair is discovered by the wilful Mr Miller, who incinerates his belongings. Wilson then becomes the Millers’ undiscovered lodger, insinuating himself into the affections of the younger daughter, Olivia. Their activities unseat everybody and bring on the collapse of all that had once looked so solid …

'Sister' is a pungent parable of bewildering enchantment. The reader will feel corrupted by it, altered.

“So charged and secretive it turns the reader into an intruder.”
WALTER ABISH

“A spellbinding debut, an often dazzling book about the ‘terrible bravery’ that moves even the most estranged teens towards one another.”
SEATTLE WEEKLY