Wise Children

"Singletons are always instrumentalizing twins, for aesthetic and philosophical purposes, and also for entertainment and money. If people are going to exploit you, why not exploit the opportunity? That’s what twin chorus girls, Dora and Nora Chance, do in Carter’s bawdy carnival of a novel. Illegitimate daughters of a great Shakespearian actor, himself a twin, the Chance sisters monetize their twinhood at the lower levels of London’s theatrical community and have a grand old time doing it. As the novel progresses, the apparently binary distinctions between high and low class, and Shakespeare and burlesque, increasingly blur. The whole thing is hugely entertaining, but what I love most about this wonderful novel is the unsentimental picture it paints of a strong, intimate twinship. Our culture tends to laud romance over siblinghood, but throughout the Elizabethan twists and turns of their family history, the one thing Dora and Nora always have is each other. It’s enough to raise some big philosophical questions about what true love looks like and enough to make a singleton weep."