THE SINGER SISTERS
Two generations of a folk-rock dynasty collide over art, love, longing, and family secrets in this captivating and poignant debut
It’s 1996, and alt-rocker Emma Cantor is on tour, with her sights trained on a record deal. Emma’s got no lack of inspiration for her music — chiefly her mother Judie, a 1960s folk legend whose confessional songs made her an icon before her mysterious withdrawal from the public eye. Emma is baffled by Judie’s coldness, and is deeply shaken when she learns a long-kept secret about their family. When Emma uncovers more about her mother’s past,
Two generations of a folk-rock dynasty collide over art, love, longing, and family secrets in this captivating and poignant debut
It’s 1996, and alt-rocker Emma Cantor is on tour, with her sights trained on a record deal. Emma’s got no lack of inspiration for her music — chiefly her mother Judie, a 1960s folk legend whose confessional songs made her an icon before her mysterious withdrawal from the public eye. Emma is baffled by Judie’s coldness, and is deeply shaken when she learns a long-kept secret about their family. When Emma uncovers more about her mother’s past, she is vaulted to new heights as a performer. But the knowledge she gains also propels her toward a musical betrayal that further fractures her relationship with Judie. Increasingly famous, but fragile and isolated, Emma grapples with her mother’s legacy and what it means for her own future.
With the richness of a beloved folk song, The Singer Sisters moves between ’60s folk clubs and ’90s music festivals, chronicling the ups and downs of stardom while asking what women artists must sacrifice for success.
- Flatiron Books
- Paperback
- August 2024
- 272 Pages
- 9781250907646
Buy the Book
$28.99
About Sarah Seltzer
For more than a decade, Sarah Seltzer has been a feminist journalist and cultural critic. Her lively writing for publications including The New York Times, TIME, Jezebel, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, The Nation, and many other places has shaped the discourse on subjects ranging from Hollywood casting, to abortion rights, to Jane Austen and beyond. A native and lifelong New Yorker, Sarah is currently the Executive Editor at Lilith Magazine. The Singer Sisters is her debut novel.
Praise
“It’s rare to find characters as richly rendered, a fictional world as expertly drawn, or a story as captivating. Like the best albums, The Singer Sisters is one you’ll finish and immediately want to start over from the first track.” —Diana Spechler, author of Who By Fire and Skinny
“Tearing through the pages of The Singer Sisters was like flipping through a friend’s magnificent record collection and wanting to borrow every last one of them. Sarah Seltzer’s sweeping and tenderly crafted novel is a quilted history of American music that reminds us that the past can sing, if we’re listening.” —Emily Schultz, author of The Blondes and Sleeping With Friends
“I devoured Sarah Seltzer’s debut novel The Singer Sisters as it swung between the 1960s folk scene and the 1990s alt rock scene. Seltzer spins a profound web, showing the complex intergenerational push and pull between mothers, daughters, sisters. Long kept secrets are revealed through songs and albums and mysterious strangers.” —Bethany Ball, author of The Pessimists
“Taking the reader from Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960s to the casually misogynistic L.A. pop-rock world of the late 1990s and early 2000s, The Singer Sisters is a superb novel—inventive, original, and extremely intelligent. It is also fast-paced, absorbing and full of heart, with a well-drawn and appealing cast of characters whose fates the reader comes to care about deeply. I felt bereft when it was over.” —Adelle Waldman, author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.
“What a story: artists, sisters, daughters, mothers, rivals, guitars. The Singer Sisters is a totally fresh and original rock & roll saga of a family full of formidable, creative, unforgettable women. Seltzer writes about different music generations with an expert’s eye and a fan’s ear, nailing all the details of how songs become part of our lives, as the singers connect and clash over the years. She makes the whole novel flow like a brilliantly complex but heart-wrenching love song.” —Rob Sheffield, bestselling author of Love is a Mixtape and Dreaming the Beatles