First published 1999
Phillip Carver works as a book editor in New York when his two unmarried sisters call him on a March Sunday afternoon. Both women live in Memphis with their widowed father and they need Phillip's help urgently. Their father plans to remarry a younger woman and the sisters want Phillip to come south and stop the wedding. Phillip hesitates to involve himself in family business but agrees to make the trip. Once he arrives in Memphis, he learns what really drives his sisters' opposition to the marriage. The visit forces Phillip to face his controlling siblings and his domineering father. He must also reckon with painful memories from his past that he has long avoided. The family drama reveals deeper wounds and conflicts that have shaped the Carvers for years. Phillip discovers that stopping his father's remarriage connects to old grievances and the desire for revenge that his sisters have harbored.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-drama, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Memphis, New York
Period: March
209 pages · Library Binding · Demco Media