The Sisters (48 page)

Acknowledgments

For their steady encouragement and wise guidance, I am deeply grateful to the three exceptional women who formed the chain that brought
The Sisters
to its present place. First, I thank my dear friend Sena Naslund, who urged me on from the earliest stirrings of Mabel’s and Bertie’s story, who spurred me forward with eager questions as new characters emerged, who spotted where I stumbled and restored me to my path by offering her advice on many successive drafts, and who introduced me to my agent, Lisa Gallagher. Second, I thank Lisa Gallagher for saying yes to the book with the kind of enthusiasm rarely known outside one’s sweetest fantasies. I thank her for her penetrating analysis of the story and her clarifying criticism, both of which helped me to revise the book in unexpected and joyous ways, and I thank her for leading me to my editor, Hope Dellon. I thank Hope Dellon—the splendid, strong third link in this chain—for shining the bright light of her intelligence and experience into the murky corners of the novel, and then standing back, so I might, in my own way and time, find what was missing.

I am grateful to the Kentucky Foundation for Women and the Kentucky Arts Council for their generous grants, which, in addition to providing practical financial assistance, gave me much-needed boosts of confidence in the early and middle stages of writing
The Sisters.

Finally, I say thank you to those in my family and among my friends who, on hearing the good news, cheered loud and long—and even danced a bit: Phyllis and Bob Herzfeld, Harry Siler, Stan Price, Donna Heffner, Annie Patterson, Rayford and June Watts, Mandy Pursley, Miranda Howard, Jolina Petersheim, Jamey Temple, and Mia Culling.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE SISTERS
. Copyright © 2011 by Nancy Jensen. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

Family tree by David Cain

www.stmartins.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jensen, Nancy, 1961–

The sisters : a novel / Nancy Jensen.—1st ed.

        p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-312-54270-2

  1.  Sisters—Fiction.   2.  Separation (Psychology)—Fiction.   3.  Family secrets—Fiction.   4.  Kentucky—Fiction.   5.  Indiana—Fiction.   6.  Domestic fiction.   7.  Psychological fiction.   I.  Title.

PS3610.E573S57 2011

813'.6—dc22

2011025854

First Edition: November 2011

eISBN 978-1-4299-8805-6