Tayari Jones’ award-winning novel tells the story of two step-sisters, Dana and Chaurisse, who share the same bigamist father, James, and yet only one of them knows it. Dana is their father’s secret, an unhappy wild child who struggles to make friends and becomes increasingly interested in her sister and her life, which from the outside seem far more perfect than her own. Chaurisse is the favourite, the one who gets to live with their father as a happy nuclear family – only she doesn’t know that every Wednesday evening James goes to his other family home.
Full of secrets and lies, strong characters and disappointment, Jones’ intricate story is about sisterhood, friendship and families who cause each other joy and pain in almost equal measure. Silver Sparrow won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2019.
