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Going Topless |  |
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Going Topless | |
Sibling rivalry has crossed many an ocean....
When Constance Wright arrives at her family's summerhouse on the Mediterranean island of Santerre for her father Ross's memorial, she hopes that boyfriend Jim, the New York investment banker on her arm, will boost her status in the family. Between her ravishing sister, Isabelle; her ageless French stepmother, Odette; and her English stepsisters, former model Lucy and famous artist Jane, there's a lot of competition for attention -- not to mention double beds.
...Now it's time to sink or swim.
What she hadn't counted on is the attraction Jim develops for one of the other women in the house...and the affinity she feels for the mysterious writer who moves in next door. As liaisons shift and tension soars, Constance finds that she's not the only one in the house whose love life is in turmoil. Complicating matters is the discovery of a Swiss bank account that Ross left behind. Now, the women of this eclectic family are about to learn more than they ever wanted to know about each other, their father, and themselves.
作者简介 Megan McAndrew is herself the daughter of expatriates. She grew up in France, Spain and Belgium before attending college in the United States. She worked in Warsaw, Poland, as a representative for the Financial Services Volunteer Corps. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her teenage son.
媒体推荐 "Masterful... If you're reminded of the novels of Diane Johnson, then you're on the right track... a wry, comic voice." -- Newsday
"Perfectly formed characters... their couplings and uncouplings make for a fun French farce." -- Entertainment Weekly
编辑推荐 Pamela Redmond Satranauthor of Babes in CaptivitySexy, witty, surprising, and full of charm.
Kirkus ReviewsTwo sets of sisters reunite tensely on a Mediterranean island to honor their dead patriarch. Constance arrives at her family's dilapidated house in Santerre brandishing her new boyfriend Jim, hoping that his presence will improve her rank in the household. She's always watched her older sister Isabelle garner all the compliments and is surprised when the intriguing next-door neighbor takes a liking to her instead. Isabelle is on the prowl, wounded from publicly losing her famous and charismatic husband to a younger fling. She butts heads with her English stepsister Lucy, another beautiful, strong-willed woman who grew up longing to usurp Isabelle for the role of her father's favorite daughter. Even as an adult, she refuses to believe he could ever have wronged them. Lucy's younger sister, the sensitive Jane, also smarting from losing her lover, knows better. The man in the middle of all this is the late Ross Wright, a schemer who went down in his heavily mortgaged plane, leaving his family literally to pay the price for his poor investments. His third wife, Odette, certainly feels the burden. Forced to leave their New York apartment and move back to her native France, she too finds herself on the island, privy to the familial and culture clashes. Newcomer McAndrew realistically relays sibling love and tension as the sisters bicker with and comfort one another in the days leading up to their father's memorial service. The narrative takes some crazy turns that might seem preposterous in any other story, but McAndrew's skill is such that you buy every minute of the partner swapping, surprise appearances, quirky locals, and discovered treasure that pop up on the way to epiphanies about dear old dad, relationships, and life in general.A smooth, engrossing debut.
NewsdayMasterful...If you're reminded of the novels of Diane Johnson, then you're on the right track...a wry, comic voice and a sharp eye.
Entertainment WeeklyPerfectly formed characters...their couplings and uncouplings make for a fun French farce.
文摘 CHAPTER ONE
We're here on vacation, though leisure was the last thing on the minds of the Genoese warlords who settled Santerre, hewing their towns and villages out of the mountainside into the flinty strongholds that I point out to Jim as we hurtle along the coastal road that hugs the cap. I've made the trip from the airport so often that I've come to enjoy the hairpin turns, the vertiginous drops into the winking sea, the sharp intake of breath as an insane native comes careening around the bend in a beat-up Peugeot, honking too late in warning. The same can't be said for Jim, who stares fixedly ahead, missing all the scenery. By the time we reach the town of Orzo, he has grown unnaturally quiet, his unease betrayed by the overly casual tone in which he asks, "Why are all the road signs painted over?"
"Nationalists," I cheerfully reply.
"Pardon me?"
I swerve to avoid the mournful cow that appears in the middle of the road after the next turn. "They drive around at night with paintbrushes."
"I don't get it."
Sometimes I forget that what passes for local color on Santerre would be viewed by most people as criminal behavior, just as I don't notice anymore the lurid slashes that deface the island's road signs. "Resistance to French cultural imperialism. They blow stuff up too."
"Yeah, right," Jim says wanly.
"Honest," I say, motioning to the charred hulk that once housed the administration of Orzo's defunct asbestos mine, though no one knows for sure how the building reached its present state. Jim, however, is by now entirely focused on not throwing up. Watching him stagger out of the rental car, I can't help but feel a little guilty. Poor Jim: I doubt this was what he had in mind when I proposed a French holiday.
At first sight, the village of Borgolano presents none of the standard Mediterranean charms, especially at dusk, when it takes on a frankly lugubrious aspect, with its tall shuttered houses deep in gloo
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