In 1965, when Alison was four, her parents - an Australian couple in the foreign service - met another couple - Americans, also in the foreign service, with two daughters around the same age as Jane and her sister. The Sisters Antipodes passes the My Dark Places memoir test, i.e., it answers with an aggressive 'yes' the question 'Did anything unique or remarkable happen in your life that is worth exploring in a memoir?' The book is about Alison's family which, while probably not any less happy than your average family is unhappy in a more interesting way. A lot of the reviews on here took issue with the 'emotional purge' quality of this book, which I get because it's the kind of thing that would normally bother me too, but for me it really worked here, not just in spite but because of its endlessly repetitive - and arguably narcissistic - exploration of psychic trauma and self. I might just hate the idea of it, of how rampant it's become and how much memoir embodies this idea that's so pervasive right now about how everyone's individual story is so fascinating and important just because it's true, and how any level of event or emotional pain so significant and unique and worth moaning on about, only because it happened. Memoir might be another one of those things that I think I really hate, but in fact don't. She is currently Professor and Director of Creative Writing at the University of Virginia, and lives in Charlottesville, VA. Jane Alison's most recent book, 'Nine Island,' is an autobiographical novel forthcoming from Catapult in Sept.

She has taught writing and literature at Columbia, Barnard, Bryn Mawr, and for writers groups in Geneva, Switzerland. She has also written several biographies for children and co-edited with Harold Bloom a critical series on women writers. Her short fiction and critical writing have recently appeared in Seed Five Points Postscript: Essays on Film and the Humanities and The Germanic Review.

Her novel, 'Natives and Exotics,' appeared in 2005 and was one of that summer’s recommended readings by Alan Cheuse of National Public Radio. It was followed by 'The Marriage of the Sea,' a New York Times Notable Book of 2003. Her first novel, 'The Love-Artist,' was published in 2001 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and has been translated into seven languages. She also worked as a freelance editor and illustrator before attending Columbia University to study creative writing. Before writing fiction, she worked as an administrator for the National Endowment for the Humanities, as a production artist for the Washington City Paper, as an editor for the Miami New Times, and as a proposal and speechwriter for Tulane University. She attended public schools in Washington, D.C., and earned a B.A. Jane Alison was born in Canberra, Australia, and grew up in the Australian and U.S.

Tad cummins caught