The Twins

Sarginson’s promising, if uneven, debut novel explores the deep, sometimes perilous bond between twins. Viola wastes away in a hospital bed due to an eating disorder. Her twin, Isolte, works hard to succeed in the magazine world. Both are haunted by their childhood, overseen by an unconventional mother who took them from a Welsh commune to the forests of Suffolk, England. There, they befriended another set of twins, John and Michael, sharing a secret that destroyed the girls’ mother and went on to consume all their lives. The emotional geography of the forests is magical, evoking a dark, fairy-tale feel. The twins are competitive and clamor for attention, while simultaneously demanding closeness and separation; their relationship is beautifully done, but Sarginson’s use of the present tense (possible evidence of her background as a script editor) is wildly distracting. Viola’s anorexia goes underexplored, and the repeated acts of animal cruelty depicted in the novel leave a bitter aftertaste, as does the portrayal of the twins’ mother as yet another unconventional woman punished in literature for nonconformity. The novel stops at a turning point, leaving the reader to wonder if a sequel is in the works, or if the author is trying to show that life is inconclusive. (Aug.)