Updated 11.19.24
Although I don’t have a sister, I’ve always been intrigued by the relationships between sisters that I’ve witnessed in my life and in fiction. Some sisters are truly best friends, some sisters get along fine so long as they don’t see each other too often, and some sisters are mortal enemies!
The sister dynamic has inspired many of the authors with novels listed on Art In Fiction. This post highlights several of them.
The Sisters Sweetby Elizabeth Weiss
All Harriet Szász has ever known is life onstage with her sister, Josie. As “The Sisters Sweet,” they pose as conjoined twins in a vaudeville act conceived of by their ambitious parents. But after Josie exposes the family’s fraud and runs away to Hollywood, Harriet must learn to live out of the spotlight—and her sister’s shadow. As Josie’s star rises in California, the Szászes fall on hard times.
Striving to keep her struggling family afloat, Harriet molds herself into the perfect daughter. She also begins to imagine a life for herself beyond the role of dutiful daughter.
On the Rooftopby Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
Vivian's three daughters have been singing in harmony since before they could speak. Together they are The Salvations, the hottest jazz band in San Francisco. But Vivian wants more for her girls, and she won't stop until they've got their big break.
When The Salvations receive a once-in-a-lifetime offer, Vivian knows this is exactly what she's been praying for. But somewhere between the grind of endless rehearsals on the rooftop and the glamour of weekly gigs at the Champagne Supper Club, Ruth, Esther and Chloe grow up and start to imagine a life beyond their mother's reach.
The Children's Blizzardby Melanie Benjamin
Based on actual oral histories of survivors, this novel follows the stories of Raina and Gerda Olsen, two sisters, both schoolteachers—one becomes a hero of a devastating storm and the other finds herself ostracized in the aftermath.
At its heart, this is a story of courage, of children forced to grow up too soon, tied to the land because of their parents’ choices. It is a story of love taking root in the hard prairie ground, and of families being torn asunder by a ferocious storm that is little remembered today—because so many of its victims were immigrants to this country.
The Little Women Lettersby Gabrielle Donnelly
With her older sister, Emma, planning a wedding and her younger sister, Sophie, launching a career on the London stage, Lulu feels like the failure of the Atwater family. Lulu loves her sisters dearly and wants nothing but the best for them, but she finds herself stuck in a rut, working dead-end jobs with no romantic prospects in sight.
Then Lulu stumbles across a collection of letters written by her great-great-grandmother Josephine March. As she delves deeper into the lives of the March sisters, she finds solace, but can Josephine's words help Lulu find her in a world so different from the one Jo knew?
The It Girlsby Karen Harper
Elinor and Lucy Sutherland, two beautiful, ambitious, witty, seductive sisters, are at once each other’s fiercest supporters and most vicious critics.
Lucy transforms herself into Lucile, the daring fashion designer who revolutionized the industry with her flirtatious gowns and brazen self-promotion. And when she marries Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon her life seems to be a fairy tale. But success comes at many costs . . . and then came the fateful night of April 14, 1912, and the scandal that followed.
Elinor’s novels push the boundaries of acceptability; her foray into the glittering new world of Hollywood makes her a world-wide phenomenon. But although she writes of passion, the true love she longs for eludes her.
But despite quarrels and misunderstandings, distance and destiny, there is no bond stronger than that of the sisters—confidantes, friends, rivals and the “It Girls” of their day.
The Other Bennet Sisterby Janice Hadlow
What if Mary Bennet, the frustrated intellectual of the Bennet family, the marginalized middle daughter, the plain girl who finds refuge in her books, eventually found the fulfillment enjoyed by her prettier, more confident sisters?
Mary learns that she must cast off the false expectations that have obscured her authentic nature and prevented her from finding what makes her happy. Only when she undergoes this evolution does she have a chance at fulfillment; only then does she have the clarity to recognize her partner when he presents himself—and only then is she worthy of love.
Mary’s destiny diverges from that of her sisters, but it does include a man; and, as in all Austen novels, she must decide whether he is truly the one for her.
The Tumbling Turner Sistersby Juliette Fay
1919: The Turners are barely scraping by. When their father loses his job, their irrepressible mother decides that vaudeville is their best chance to make the rent—and create a more exciting life for herself in the process.
Traveling by train from town to town, teenagers Gert, Winnie, and Kit, and recent widow Nell soon find a new kind of freedom in the company of performers who are as diverse as their acts. There is a seedier side to the business, however, and the young women face dangers and turns of fate they never anticipated. Heartwarming and surprising, The Tumbling Turner Sisters is ultimately a story of awakening—to unexpected possibilities, to love and heartbreak, and to the dawn of a new American era.
The Chanel Sistersby Judithe Little
Abandoned at a young age, Antoinette and Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel have been raised under the guidance of nuns preparing them for simple lives as the wives of tradesmen or shopkeepers. At night, their secret cache of romance novels and magazine cutouts are all they have to keep their dreams of the future alive.
When they’re finally of age, the Chanel sisters set out together to prove themselves worthy to a society that has never accepted them. Their journey lifts them out of poverty and to the stylish cafés of Moulins, the dazzling performance halls of Vichy—and to a small hat shop on Paris's rue Cambon.
When World War I erupts, the sisters are forced to make irrevocable choices, and they’ll have to gather the strength to fashion their own places in the world.
The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontëby Syrie James
The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë reveals the passionate side of poor, plain, and unconnected Charlotte Brontë. Her relationships with her sisters Emily and Jane and their drug-addicted brother, play a central role in the novel, told as a series of diary entries from Charlotte’s point of view.
In her diary, Charlotte exposes her deepest feelings and desires—and the truth about her life, its triumphs and shattering disappointments, her family, the inspiration behind her work, her scandalous secret passion for the man she can never have, and her intense, dramatic relationship with the man she comes to love, the enigmatic Arthur Bell Nicholls.
Charlotte and Emilyby Jude Morgan
This is an historical biographical novel about the Brontë sisters.
From an obscure country parsonage came three remarkable sisters who defied the outward harshness of their lives to create the most shining literary work of their era. In this astonishingly bold novel, Jude Morgan reveals the genius of the haunted Brontës and brings the sisters to full, magnificent life: Emily, who turned to the temptations of the imagination; gentle Anne, who suffered the harshest idea of the oppressive life forced upon her; and the brilliant, inflexible, and troubled Charlotte, who yearned for both love and independence, and discovered their ultimate price.
Vanessa and Her Sisterby Priya Parmar
Set in London in1905, thishistorical biographical novel about Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa revolves around the four Stephen siblings at the leading edge of a changing world: Vanessa, Virginia, Thoby, and Adrian who leave their childhood home and take a house in the verdant heart of avant-garde Bloomsbury.
There they unite a glittering circle of bright, outrageous artistic friends who will grow into legend and come to be dubbed the Bloomsbury Group. And at the center of this charmed circle are two devoted and talented sisters: Vanessa, the painter, and Virginia, the writer.
The Weird Sistersby Eleanor Brown
Three sisters have returned to their childhood home, reuniting the eccentric Andreas family. Here, books are a passion (there is no problem a library card can't solve) and TV is something that other people watch. Their father, a professor of Shakespeare who speaks almost exclusively in verse, named them after the Bard's heroines. It's a lot to live up to.
The sisters have a difficult time communicating with their parents and their lovers, but especially with each another. What can the shy homebody eldest sister, the fast-living middle child, and the bohemian youngest sibling have in common? Only that none has found life to be what was expected; and now, faced with their parents' frailty and their own individual disappointments, not even a book can solve what ails them.
The Time Betweenby Karen White
Eleanor Murray will always remember her childhood on Edisto Islandin the South Carolina Lowcountry, where her late father, a local shrimper, shared her passion for music. Now her memories of him are all that tempers the guilt she feels over the accident that put her sister in a wheelchair—and the feelings she harbors for her sister’s husband.
When Eleanor returns to Edisto Island to care for her elderly aunt Helena, she shares her love of music with grieving Helena, whose sister recently died under mysterious circumstances. Eleanor will finally learn the truth about their past: secrets that will help heal her own relationship with her own sister—and set Eleanor free.
The Wednesday Sistersby Meg Waite Clayton
For thirty-five years, Frankie, Linda, Kath, Brett, and Ally have met every Wednesday at the park near their Palo Alto, California homes. Initially defined by what their husbands do, the young homemakers and mothers are distantly removed from the Summer of Love that has taken over most of the Bay Area in 1967.
These “Wednesday Sisters” appear to have little in common: Frankie is a timid transplant from Chicago, brutally blunt Linda is a noted athlete, Kath is a Kentucky debutante, quiet Ally holds a secret, and quirky, super-intelligent Brett wears little white gloves with her miniskirts. But they are united by a love of both literature—Fitzgerald, Eliot, Austen, du Maurier, Plath, and Dickens—as well as the Miss America Pageant, which they watch together every year.
As the years pass and their children grow, the quintet forms a writers circle to express their hopes and dreams through poems, stories, and, eventually, books.
The Other Alcottby Elise Hooper
This an historical biographical novel centered around stylish, outgoing, and artistic, May Alcott and her sister Louisa, who writes stories. May is a gifted and dedicated artist who studies in Boston, declines a proposal of marriage from an affluent suitor, and faces derision for entering what is very much a man’s profession.
Life for the Alcott family has never been easy, so the success of Louisa’s Little Women lessens the financial burdens they’d contended with for so many years. Everyone finds the novel charming, but May is struck to the core by the portrayal of selfish, spoiled “Amy March.” Is this what her beloved sister actually thinks of her?
May embarks on a quest of discovery to find her own true identity as an artist and a woman. From Boston to Rome, London, and Paris, this courageous, talented, and determined woman creates an amazing life, making her far more than simply the "other" Alcott.
Little Woman in Blueby Jeannine Atkins
May Alcott is at the center of the story she might have told about sisterhood and rivalry in an extraordinary family.
May Alcott spends her days sewing blue shirts for Union soldiers, but she dreams of painting a masterpiece―which many say is impossible for a woman―and of finding love, too. When she reads her sister’s wildly popular novel, Little Women, she is stung by Louisa’s portrayal of her as “Amy,” the youngest of four sisters who exchanges her desire to succeed as an artist for the joys of hearth and home. Determined to prove her talent, May makes plans to move far from Massachusetts and create a life for herself with room for both watercolors and a wedding dress. Can she succeed? And if she does, at what price?
by Ntozake Shange
Ntozake Shange has written a rich and wondrous story of womanhood, art, and passionately-lived lives told through the eyes of three sisters and their mother from Charleston, South Carolina.
Sassafrass, the oldest, is a poet and a weaver like her mother before her. Having gone north to college, she is now living with other artists in Los Angeles and trying to weave a life out of her work, her man, her memories, and her dreams. Cypress, the dancer, leaves home to find new ways of moving in the world. Indigo, the youngest, is still a child of Charleston -"too much of the south in her"- who lives in poetry and has the supreme gift of seeing the obvious magic of the world.
The Cranes Danceby Meg Howrey
This funny, dark, intimate, and unflinchingly honest novel pulls back the curtain on the private lives of dancers and the complicated bond between sisters.
Kate Crane, a soloist in a celebrated New York City ballet company, struggles to keep her place in a very demanding world. At every turn she is haunted by her close relationship with her younger sister Gwen, a fellow company dancer whose career quickly surpassed Kate’s, but who has recently suffered a breakdown and returned home.
Alone for the first time in her life, Kate is anxious and full of guilt about the role she may have played in her sister’s collapse. As we follow her on an insider tour of rehearsals, performances, and partners onstage and off, she confronts the tangle of love, jealousy, pride, and obsession that are beginning to fracture her own sanity.
Wise Childrenby Angela Carter
In their heyday on the vaudeville stages of the early 20th century, twin sisters Dora and Nora Chance—the unacknowledged daughters of Sir Melchior Hazard, the greatest Shakespearean actor of his day—were known as the Lucky Chances, with private lives as colorful and erratic as their careers.
But now, at age 75, Dora is typing up their life story, and it is a tale indeed that Angela Carter tells. A writer known for the richness of her imagination and wit as well as her feminist insights into matters large and small, she created in Wise Childrenan effervescent family saga that manages to celebrate the lore and magic of show business while also exploring the connections between parent and child, the transitory and the immortal, authenticity, and falsehood.
The Grammariansby Cathleen Schine
Laurel and Daphne Wolfe, identical, inseparable redheaded twins, share an obsession with words. They speak a secret “twin” language of their own as toddlers. As adults in 1980s Manhattan, their verbal infatuation continues, but this love, which has always united them, begins instead to divide them.
Daphne, copy editor and grammar columnist, devotes herself to preserving the dignity and elegance of Standard English. Laurel, who gives up teaching kindergarten to write poetry, is drawn instead to the polymorphous, transient nature of the written and spoken word. Their fraying twinship finally shreds completely when the sisters go to war, absurdly but passionately, over custody of their most prized family heirloom: Merriam Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition.
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Written by Carol M. Cram for Art In Fiction
