A portrait of young ladies – Michelle Zink’s Prophecy of the Sisters

Michelle Zink‘s debut novel, Prophecy of the Sisters, is an intriguing debut which certainly promises a lot for the rest of the series. I picked this up as a curiosity to see what it was like and found that I couldn’t put it down.

The Milthorpe sisters, Alice and Amalia (better known as Lia), have just buried their father when Lia notices a mark appearing on her wrist. Exploring her house, she sees her sister in a circle in the Dark Room, a Bluebeard-esque room. When James, the son of her father’s Bookseller, finds an odd volume which has been hidden from view, Lia discovers the Prophecy regarding two sisters, unaware that her sister already knows about it. As she explores it, she finds that it affects more than just the family.

Zink tells the story from the first person which always puts me on edge. How do we know how the narrator is telling the real story? It is  a neat trick that Henry James uses in the Turn of the Screw to great effect, one comes away from that story not knowing the truth about the affair. Zink’s story starts a one thing and unfolds, we are introduced to the one sister who we believe is the Guardian, the good sister in the prophecy, but who turns out to be the Gate. We cannot entirely trust Lia and this bubbles with her friends, Sonia and Luisa. Once they find out that she is not who they think she is, their bond changes into something different, less reliant upon her role and more on her person.

I got strong echoes of Henry James’s writing in the novel, from the settings and tone to the unreliable narrator. Beautifully paced and steady, it is a strange return to a measured world where sometimes one can see the twists before they arrive. There is a calm to the writing which enjoys itself and would appear to be enjoyed by the author. Added to this is the beautiful design with the thorns running across the bottom of the page.

Interwoven is the tale of Lia sexually coming of age with her interest in James. In a sense this challenges the strict view of Stephanie Meyer in the Twilight series where the love cannot be consumated. I sense that this might well happen later in the books but it dovetails neatly into one of the Gothic novel’s strengths. The Gothic mirrors and provides a societal release for issues that the ‘enlightened’ society does not want to admit and Zink encourages Lia to find a space for him in her life which she appears to be doing at the moment.

In the meanwhile Lia is also trying to become herself and to find her identity rather than purely accept the Prophecy. At the moment, Zink seems to be hinting that the Prophecy may not be written ‘in stone’ and that Lia might be able to challenge her sister who wants to the Gate, not the Guardian. Zink challenges the Calvinistic predetermination of the Gothic (especially James Hogg in Confessions of a Justified Sinner) but there is a Protestant underpinning to the book.

Prophecy of the Sisters is a deceptively slight book. It respects the Gothic tradition in a way deeper way and loves it, though not uncritically. Zink challenges the ideas of determined fate and female identity but also uses the tropes to tell a rattling yarn. That the Gothic is popular again speaks volumes for the current state of society but this often comes from a television perspective. Zink comes from the literary tradition and refreshes the Gothic in the current trend, reminding us of its vitality which underlies the hokey settings.

Atom’s Prophecy of the Sisters website and competition to win a copy.

Michelle Zink, Prophecy of the Sisters (Atom, London, 2009) £12.99