The author deftly captures the intricacies and subtle violence of a sibling relationship. As both girls age, our sympathies shift again and again
“Everyone is very sure that Mary never tried to kill me,” says one of the protagonists of Sororicidal at the beginning of the book. “This is because Mary was always careful not to look as though she were trying to kill me.” The speaker here is Margot, Mary’s younger sister, and she is reflecting on her early childhood and the dangerous games they played, largely at Mary’s insistence.
The pair are in their early pubescence at the book’s opening, in 1915, growing up in a prosperous family on the outskirts of Adelaide. Mary is a gifted painter, and her creativity is encouraged by the girls’ parents, fuelling Margot’s mingled envy and admiration. Beside Mary, Margot feels lumpish, awkward and untalented, and decidedly overlooked. Margot and Mary exist almost entirely within a closed milieu – they have a governess, rather than attending the local school, and are largely left to their own devices by their parents, existing within a shared imaginative world that is intense and often tinged with danger.
Sororicidal by Edwina Preston is published by Picador Australia ($34.99)
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