Maggie, Eliza, and Tricia Sweeney grew up as a happy threesome in the idyllic seaside town of Southport, Connecticut. But their mother's death from cancer fifteen years ago tarnished their golden-hued memories, and the sisters drifted apart. Their one touchstone is their father, Bill Sweeney, an internationally famous literary lion and college professor universally adored by critics, publishers, and book lovers. When Bill dies unexpectedly one cool June night, his shell-shocked daughters return to their childhood home. They aren't quite sure what the future holds without their larger-than-life father, but they do know how to throw an Irish wake to honor a man of his stature. But as guests pay their respects and reminisce, one stranger, emboldened by whiskey, has crashed the party. It turns out that she too is a Sweeney sister. When Washington, DC based journalist Serena Tucker had her DNA tested on a whim a few weeks earlier, she learned she had a 50% genetic match with a childhood neighbor—Maggie Sweeney of Southport, Connecticut. It seems Serena's chilly WASP mother, Birdie, had a history with Bill Sweeney—one that has remained totally secret until now. Once the shock wears off, questions abound. What does this mean for William's literary legacy? Where is the unfinished memoir he's stashed away, and what will it reveal? And how will a fourth Sweeney sister—a blond among redheads—fit into their story?
My first reaction upon finishing The Sweeney Sisters was excitement at getting to see my own sister. This is because Dolan does a masterful job depicting the highs, lows, and everything in between of siblinghood, but sisterhood in particular. I loved how each sister was typecast—the older sister has her responsibilities, the middle sister goes with the wind, and the practical youngest sister focuses on the details—and then how Dolan put them through their paces so that they learned how to become the best versions of themselves. I loved how this novel's focus on family, and in particular keeping adult family members in forced proximity with one another, showed how there's always more we can learn about how to interact with our loved ones and grow as individuals along the way.
The focus on Serena's story, and making it a story about the sisters themselves, was brilliant. I enjoyed how Bill was rarely a character, but that he was, in fact, always on the periphery. I loved how Serena's story served to prove that her journey was about finding herself as a Sweeney sister, and not as Bill's daughter. I loved how Serena's narration helped push that there's more to family than just our DNA, even if one of those tests was what pushes us to determine that. Dolan developed all of the sisters equally and they each shone during their narration, which flawlessly moved between all four sisters. Their story and their love for one another is at the heart of the novel, and it can truly be felt.
The only thing that lacked as much skill as the rest of the novel was the dialogue. It seemed to me that sometimes the characters didn't speak like actual people, and that rather swaths of narration had been adapted to dialogue. It worked to convey important points that helped move the novel along, but it was jarring at some points. I also would have liked the point about the mother's poetry being burned to have been developed further. It felt like a bombshell not just to the sisters, but to the readers as well, and further development of that might have worked in the favor of the later chapters. Regardless, I still found this novel to enjoyable, a perfectly paced beach read, and certainly a book sisters would enjoy.
Lian Dolan does have a talent bringing complicated and bighearted stories to the page, and The Sweeney Sisters has convinced me to keep her other novels on my radar!
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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