The novel's cast is an ensemble; the four sisters have equally important roles. While at first glimpse each may seem to match a stereotype — the brilliant, overachieving oldest daughter; the cheery, uncomplicated housewife; the prickly Chicana lesbian — within a few pages they become so real and complicated that the stereotypes fall apart. Indeed, this may be the first of French's novels which treats each major female character primarily as an individual person, rather than as a variation of universal Woman.

The author has pulled off a major tour de force of character development.

Each of the four — and the reader's perception of them as well — changes substantially within the two months they spend together in the Upton mansion.

At the book's opening Elizabeth and Mary are very unlikable people. They belittle and quarrel with each other, picking at the other one's sore points.

They...