Dual Citizens: A novel

Half-sisters Lark and Robin grow up close in Montreal, bound by their mother Marianne’s negligence and wild mood swings. Left mostly to their own devices, they find camaraderie with a prickly neighbor who recognizes and cultivates Robin’s musical talent. When Lark leaves for college in the United States, she is wracked with guilt over leaving Robin behind. The sisters eventually find themselves in New York City: Robin is attending Juilliard, and Lark is struggling to forge a life in film. Here, the lifelong differences between them begin to fracture their relationship. Robin rebels against her instructors’ expectations and demands, and Lark finds herself under the spell of an eccentric filmmaker; the sisters split onto very different paths. Only years later will they confront the fallout of their choices–and find their way back to each other.

Dual Citizens is a long flashback narrated by Lark, who is happy and settled in her present life, but still grappling with the fraught path she traveled to get there and the even more lurching path Robin traveled to find a place by her side. Alix Ohlin’s gorgeous prose and deeply drawn characters pull readers easily through the decades, creating an unforgettable portrait of two women who find that the bonds of sisterhood transcend even the most conflicting definitions of happiness.