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The Three Incestuous Sisters : An Illustrated Novel Harry Abrams Sep05
From Booklist*Starred Review* Niffenegger, author of the best-selling novel The Time Traveler's Wife (2003), is an accomplished artist as well as an imaginative writer, and she now presents a shivery fairy tale in the form of an eerily beautiful novel-in-pictures. The minimal yet spooky text faces dramatically nuanced full-page prints portraying three grown, orphaned sisters. Bettina, the youngest, is a lovely blond; Ophile, the unhappy eldest, has blue hair; Clothilde, in the middle and in a world of her own, is a redhead. The svelte sisters possess extravagantly long hair and tapering, expressive hands; wear clinging, gray, ankle-length dresses; and are as powerfully evocative as dancers in a Martha Graham production. They live harmoniously in "a lonely house by the sea" until the late lighthouse keeper's handsome son, Paris, appears and falls in love with Bettina, who soon becomes pregnant. Clothilde, whose esoteric talents include levitation, communes happily with her in utero nephew, while Ophile goes mad with jealousy. Niffenegger's grim yet erotic tale and stunningly moody gothic prints possess the sly subversion of Edward Gorey, the emotional valence of Edvard Munch, and her very own brilliant use of iconographic pattern, surprising perspective, and tensile line in the service of a delectable, otherworldly sensibility.
Edward Gorey yes very like his style.
"the book of my heart, a fourteen-year labor of love."
Pubweekly: Blonde Bettine is the youngest and prettiest, redhead Clothilde is "the most talented" and blue-haired Ophile, the eldest, is considered the smartest.
- Why INCESTUOUS? The last picture might offer a clue. On the left were the images of Ophile, Bettine and Paris (the lining suggests that these were ghost/past images) on the right however was Clothilde, The Saint, his old father (paris) and a red-head girl with wings... could she be the daughter of Clothilde and The Saint? Maybe. Afterall, the novel is called The Three Incestuous Sisters. He reads her mind like a book and they have been "communing" since he was inside his mother's womb.

See Audrey Niffenegger's 10 Illustrated Books to Read, or browse through all of our expert book recommendations in Grownup School.