26a

Product Description

A hauntingly beautiful, wickedly funny, and devastatingly moving novel of innocence and dreams that announces the arrival of a major new talent to the literary scene

In the attic room at 26 Waifer Avenue, identical twins Georgia and Bessi Hunter share nectarines and forge their identities, while escaping from the sadness and danger that inhabit the floors below. But innocence lasts for only so long—and dreams, no matter how vivid and powerful, cannot slow the relentless incursion of the real world.
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. From the very beginning of Evan's first novel (winner of Britain's inaugural Orange Award for New Writers), readers know they're in for something rich and strange. Two small furry creatures scurry through the night to their deaths—and are reborn as twins Georgia and Bessi. The middle daughters of Aubrey Hunter and his Nigerian wife, Ida, they occupy the attic room at 26a Waifer Avenue in London. When the twins are eight, the family takes a three-year sojourn in Nigeria, where they live a relatively grander life ("We had servants," Bessi later brags), but where Georgia has a terrifying run-in with a "ju-ju man" that changes her. The novel meanders as the girls grow, pausing to explore an intricate weave of childhood fantasy, African religion, nightmare, pop mythology and the intense inner world of identical twins. All the Hunters are drawn with care: hard-working Ida, who misses her mother so desperately that she converses with her daily in her head; hard-drinking Aubrey, whom liquor transforms into a Mr. Hyde; older sister Bel, rushing into adult sexuality; little Kemy, in love with Michael Jackson; and the twins, with their jokes, adventures and plans for a flapjack empire. This is a funny, haunting, marvelous debut.
(Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–The four sisters at 26 Waifer Avenue, in a somewhat shabby London neighborhood, must deal with their alcoholic English father and their spirit-talking Nigerian mother. Twins Bessi and Georgia Hunter create their own world in their attic room. Although their older and younger siblings are allowed to share in it occasionally, the bond between Bessi and Georgia goes beyond typical sisterhood, and the two cannot always determine where one ends and the other begins. While they are growing up, this is not such an issue, but as they approach adulthood, the conflict between separate interests and loyalty to one another becomes more pronounced. Yet even as Bessi tries to forge a distinct identity, and a heartbreaking secret of Georgia's threatens to come between them, they find that they cannot easily escape the oneness of their relationship. Evans's first novel brims with lyricism and mysticism. The author deftly captures the voices of all six family members as each one struggles with questions of identity. Meeting the topics of depression and suicide head-on, Evans treats these issues with a respect and grace that underscore the eventual triumph of spirit within the Hunter family.
–Kim Dare, Fairfax County Public Library System, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* In a noteworthy first novel that reads with the ease of respiration and recalls both Zadie Smith's
White Teeth (2000) and Monica Ali's
Brick Lane (2003), Evans applies sensitive, lyrical writing to the tug-of-war between dueling identities. Numerous variations on the theme (think geographical, cultural, marital, even biological) occur among the Hunters, a biracial family in suburban London: there's Ida, a Nigerian who fled her village to avoid being married off for "two goats, some money, and an English portable TV"; Aubrey, an alcoholic Englishman; and four daughters whose personalities, like their afro hair, "travel the realms of