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WORK TITLE: Dead Letters
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WEBSITE: http://www.caitedolanleach.com/
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LC control no.: n 2014036733
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2014036733
HEADING: Dolan-Leach, Caite
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PERSONAL
Born in upstate NY.
EDUCATION:Graduate of Trinity College, Dublin and American University, Paris.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and literary translator.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
A native of the Finger Lakes region in upstate New York, Caite Dolan-Leach is a writer and literary translator. She graduated from Trinity College, Dublin and makes her home in Paris, where she attended American University.
In her debut novel, Dead Letters, Dolan-Leach spins a complex psychological mystery that reviewers have compared to the work of Gillian Flynn and Paula Hawkins. The action begins when Zelda Antipova’s corpse is discovered in the burnt wreckage of a fire at the family’s winery, and her twin sister Ava, who had been attending graduate school in Paris, flies back to upstate New York to find out what had happened. The sisters had been especially close, and when Ava begins to receive strange emails with instructions and clues, she suspects that Zelda may be manipulating her from beyond the grave.
Ava’s return drags her back into the family’s dysfunctionality. The vineyard is in precarious financial shape. Nadine, the twins’ mother, is housebound with dementia, alcoholism, and addiction to pills. Marlon, their father, is also an alcoholic; he is divorced from Nadine and has established a new family and a new and more successful wine business nearby. Also on the scene is Wyatt, the young man with whom both sisters had been in love and whose brief affair with Zelda had precipitated the sisters’ estrangement. Despite her best intentions, Ava is soon flirting with Wyatt and drinking heavily with her family.
While snooping through Zelda’s Airstream trailer, where the dead woman had been living on a secluded part of the family’s property, Ava finds Zelda’s discarded phone. To her consternation, it begins to transmit emails, texts, and Facebook and Instagram posts that suggest an alphabetic key to Zelda’s fate. Is Ava in communication with Zelda’s ghost? Or is her twin somehow still alive, and playing a cruel game with her? Beginning to doubt her sanity, Ava turns to Wyatt for help in determining the lines between myth, dream, and reality.
Writing in Library Journal, Michele Leber found Dead Letters a “compelling” story about family legacies and sisterhood that is “as compassionate and insightful as it is riveting.” Observing that the book combines the wit and cleverness of Agatha Christie and Dorothy Parker with “the inebriated Gothic of Eugene O’Neill,” a contributor to Kirkus Reviews deemed the novel a “sharp, wrenching tale of the true love only twins know.” Culture Fly website contributor Natalie Xenos also praised the novel highly, pointing out that “this is as much a morbid scavenger hunt for readers as it is for Ava” and explaining that each clue propels the protagonist into more confusion and doubt. “Filled with devious deceit and taut twists, Dead Letters wears its literary influences firmly on its sleeve,” Xenos added. “It has the macabre, melancholy mystery of Edgar Allen Poe and the contemporary domestic thrills of Gillian Flynn . . . Like the Antipova family itself, Dead Letters is complicated, fascinating and dangerously thrilling.”
Noting the novel’s expert handling of suspense, Nylon website interviewer Kristin Iversen asked Dolan-Leach what attracts her to the suspense genre. “Any book you feel compelled to finish needs to create narrative desire,” the author explained. “Suspense is one of the most forceful ways to create this desire, and that compulsion to turn pages is one of my favorite feelings.” Dolan-Leach went on to say that she had chosen to write within a tight structure–in this case, alphabetical cues–because this constraint required her to be particularly creative.
“I love that tense, dark thrillers written by women are having a bit of a cultural moment,” Dolan-Leach told Iversen. “Clearly, people are hungry for this type of fiction–books that have a lot of plot and creepiness, but that are still invested in language and those traditionally ‘literary’ conventions that people often still tend to think are the sole purview of literary fiction. I’d love to see some of those fussy ideas about genre dissolve.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, February 1, 2017, Carol Haggas, review of Dead Letters, p. 24.
Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 2016, review of Dead Letters.
Library Journal, December 1, 2016, Michele Leber, review of Dead Letters, p. 93.
ONLINE
All The Books I Can Read, https://1girl2manybooks.wordpress.com/ (October 9, 2017), review of Dead Letters.
Book of the Month Web Site, https://www.bookofthemonth.com/ (October 9, 2017), Sarah Weinman, review of Dead Letters.
Caite Dolan-Leach Home Page, http://www.caitedolanleach.com (October 9 2017).
Cozie, http://thecozie.co/ (October 9 2017), review of Dead Letters.
Culture Fly, http://culturefly.co.uk/ (October 9, 2017), Natalie Xenos, review of Dead Letters.
Curtis Brown Web Site, https://www.curtisbrown.co.uk/ (October 9, 2017), Dolan-Leach profile.
Nylon, https://www.nylon.com/ (October 9, 2017), Kristin Iversen, “How to Write a Modern Ghost Story–without a Ghost;” interview with Dolan-Leach.
Sarah’s Book Shelves, https://www.sarahsbookshelves.com/ (October 9, 2017), review of Dead Letters.*
CAITE DOLAN-LEACH
DEAD LETTERS About Translations/Non-Fiction Events Contact
ABOUT
Caite Dolan-Leach is a writer and literary translator. She was born in the Finger Lakes and is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin and the American University in Paris. Dead Letters is her first novel.
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BOOKS (UK & COMM) Felicity Blunt
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TRANSLATION RIGHTS Roxane Edouard
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BIOGRAPHY
ICM Partners
Caite Dolan-Leach is a writer and translator.
Originally from a small town in the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York, she attended university at Trinity College, Dublin, and has since then lived in Italy, France and South Africa. She has co-translated two novels: Orphans, by Hadrien Laroche, and Newspaper, by Edouard Levé. She also occasionally writes criticism and non-fiction. Dead Letters is her first novel. Caite currently lives in Paris, France.
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Dead Letters
Feb 2017
LINKS
ICM Partners
Newcomer Caite Dolan-Leach shows us just how close twin sisters can be--and shockingly far apart. With near-perfect plotting and an ear for the complicated lives of clever women, Dolan-Leach writes like Paula Hawkins by way of Curtis Sittenfeld. At once a moving family drama and a wickedly macabre mystery, Dead Letters is above all a satisfying puzzle that will keep readers guessing until the very last page.
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How To Write A Modern Ghost Story—Without A Ghost
Talking to Caite Dolan-Leach about ‘Dead Letters’
BY KRISTIN IVERSEN · APRIL 04, 2017
How To Write A Modern Ghost Story—Without A Ghost
IMAGE VIA STUDIO CABRELLI PARIS
We’re living—and reading—in a new golden age of suspense literature; writers like Tana French, Sarah Waters, and Gillian Flynn have created a real cultural moment thanks to their twistily plotted, beautifully written—and incredibly popular—novels. We’re the first to admit that we’re big fans of edge-of-your-seat page-turners, but it’s time to move beyond the genre-defining works of years past and dive into the genre-defying suspense books that are coming out now.
All of which is to say: If you haven’t yet, pick up a copy of Caite Dolan-Leach’s debut novel, Dead Letters, and read what is the perfect example a modern ghost story—only without a ghost. Dead Letters revolves around identical twins Ava and Zelda Antipova, their hyper-dysfunctional family, and the mysterious barn fire which appears to have killed Zelda—only, if it did, then why is Ava receiving messages from her twin beyond the grave? Dolan-Leach skillfully constructs a narrative that feels like a scavenger hunt not only for the characters but for the reader. I tore through the book in a mere two days, so eager was I to find out if my theories about Zelda’s disappearance were accurate, and so immersed was I in the dark secrets that lay within the Antipova family (all of whom are pretty much always heavily under the influence of the wine they make at their vineyard, in the Finger Lakes region of New York State). Like French and Waters, Dolan-Leach subverts many expectations of what a suspense novel is supposed to be, in that her writing is lyrical, her references are elevated and even esoteric, and she works within what are often thought to be purely literary conventions. Add all of this on to a gripping story line, whose outcome remains a mystery till the final pages, and you get one of the most exciting debuts to come along in some time.
Below, I discussed Dead Letters with Dolan-Leach, what it means to be working within the suspense genre, and what it’s like to be writing from the point of view of an incredibly unreliable narrator.
What was your initial inspiration for this book?
The first 10 or 15 pages sort of just appeared one day; I could hear Ava and Zelda speaking to each other, and they were both so damn loud! After I realized they still had a lot to say, I decided to let the rest of the story play out and let them continue their conversation. It got weirder from there.
What attracts you to suspense as a genre?
Any book you feel compelled to finish needs to create narrative desire—that feeling that you have to know what happens, know where the story is going. Suspense is one of the most forceful ways to create this desire, and that compulsion to turn pages is one of my favorite feelings.
Dead Letters has such a specific structure, in that it’s framed around the letters of the alphabet, but within that framework, some incredibly wild things happen. Was it liberating in some ways to work within such a structure?
Yeah, absolutely. One of the inspirations for Dead Letters is the OuLiPo movement, a French literary group who believed that constraint and limitation generate more creative writing; Ava is writing her dissertation on these dudes and on Edgar Allen Poe, incidentally. Though I didn’t intend to put the Oulipian philosophy to the test, I found that as I was writing these alphabetical clues, clues which had to occur in structured and organized ways, I was able to experiment and find out more about my characters and what they were up to. Certainly writing the pangrams required a very different type of creativity.
How do you go about writing a book like this? Did you know the ending as soon as you started? Were there any narrative surprises for you along the way?
I definitely encountered a few plot twists that I didn’t know about when I began—the biggest reveal for me was the alphabetical structure, which I figured out about the same time as Ava did. The ending was more or less how I imagined it at the beginning, but getting from those first few pages—from Ava’s return home— to those final scenes was fairly suspenseful for me!
While this book is pretty much the epitome of a page-turner, it doesn’t sacrifice any of its literary integrity. How do you feel about being a part of a genre that’s really starting to explode in popularity?
I love that tense, dark thrillers written by women are having a bit of a cultural moment. Clearly, people are hungry for this type of fiction—books that have a lot of plot and creepiness, but that are still invested in language and those traditionally “literary” conventions that people often still tend to think are the sole purview of literary fiction. I’d love to see some of those fussy ideas about genre dissolve.
This book is set in New York’s Finger Lakes region; what makes that area so special to you?
I spent the first 17 years of my life in the Finger Lakes, about eight miles from where the fictitious Silenus is supposed to be located, and it’s where I’m living right now. It’s a really peculiar part of the world, a place that is cinematically beautiful but is also socio-economically quite complex and weird. I’d love to see more books and movies set in these parts.
Was there something specific that appealed to you about writing about twins?
I was most interested in thinking about twins as a literary device; when you have two identical people, you are forced to think about identity very differently, and the idea of “the double” gets deployed in some of the best Gothic and surreal fiction as a way of disrupting what we consider to be reality. Twins are also the closest relationship you can imagine having—not just sharing a womb, a childhood, a history, but literally sharing your genes. I wanted to see what happens when that closeness is interrupted.
Did you ever consider writing the book in the third person, rather than from the point of view of Ava?
The story just wouldn’t work from anyone else’s POV; so much of the plot relies on Ava’s misreadings—of the past, of the clues, of herself and her sister. Without her particular set of blinkers, we would get a very different version of the narrative, and since the story is constructed for her, and eventually by her, it would be very dislocating and strange, I think, to have it told by someone else.
How do you think being in Ava’s head affects the point of view of the reader? Are there things we might miss because of the inherently unreliable narration of a first-person POV?
Definitely. Ava is essentially a bad reader; she misses things, reads into the wrong things, and ignores the important ones. One of the reasons I think—hope—that the book moves so quickly is that Ava is rushing through it, desperate to get to the end and the solution of the puzzle. In her haste, she misses some really crucial details, and the reader is left trying to fit together some pieces that won’t ever necessarily add up. Also, she’s sozzled for most of the book, and not always the most lucid.
What was your favorite part of the book to write?
When I sat down to type out the beginning, it was so fully formed that it was hard not to feel caught up in writing it; as I worked through the draft, there were eventually so many moving pieces that I had to slow down and focus on details, but in the beginning, it was just Ava and Zelda, launching all these words at each other. I got to just live with their voices, and wonder what they were up to.
Dead Letters is available for purchase here.
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Dead Letters
Carol Haggas
Booklist.
113.11 (Feb. 1, 2017): p24.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Dead Letters.
By Caite Dolan-Leach.
Mar. 2017. 328p. Random, $27 (9780399588853).
Though their initials put them at opposite ends of the alphabet, Ava and Zelda Antipova could not be closer. Who else
knows Zelda's hiding spots? Who else can understand Ava's need to conform? When Zelda's remains are found in a
fire on the grounds of the family's winery in upstate New York, Ava returns from graduate school in Paris to uncover
the mystery behind her twin sister's death, a puzzle made more complicated as emails appear out of the cyber ether
directing Ava on a cat-and-mouse chase that delves into the family's darkest secrets. Guilt, remorse, lies,
recriminations follow. Zelda plays Ava like a finely tuned instrument, even after Ava realizes just how diabolically
she's being manipulated. With her mother's dementia growing more pronounced, and her father's physical and
emotional distance a barrier, Ava enlists Wyatt, the love of her, and of Zelda's life, to separate myth from reality.
Considering questions of identity, loyalty, and reliance, Dolan-Leach's tautly crafted crime debut will resonate with
fans of Gillian Flynn's and Paula Hawkins' domestic psychological thrillers. --Carol Haggas
Haggas, Carol
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Haggas, Carol. "Dead Letters." Booklist, 1 Feb. 2017, p. 24. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA481244780&it=r&asid=5bca6f4ee887219b4a89f626ef68da2c.
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Dolan-Leach, Caite: DEAD LETTERS
Kirkus Reviews.
(Dec. 15, 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Dolan-Leach, Caite DEAD LETTERS Random House (Adult Fiction) $27.00 2, 28 ISBN: 978-0-399-58885-3
No one knows Zelda Antipova better than her identical twin. So Ava is naturally suspicious when she hears Zelda has
burned to death in their barn--just the kind of death she would have planned herself. Ava leaves her home in Paris, her
boyfriend, and her doctoral research on Edgar Allan Poe and the OuLiPo movement--writers obsessed with mysteries
and literary games--to pick up the pieces of her family in the Finger Lakes region of New York. The Antipova family
is not known for keeping their acts together, what with their faltering vineyard and the alcoholism riddling the veins of
every member, not to mention the dementia that keeps Nadine, Ava and Zelda's mother, housebound, drunk, and
popping pills. Marlon, the twins' father and Nadine's ex, has dutifully arrived as well, leaving his new family behind at
his own, successful, vineyard. Despite having been absent for the past two years after a falling-out with her sister over
Wyatt--her high school love, who pined long enough for relationship-shy Ava to fall briefly into flamboyant Zelda's
arms--Ava falls back into old habits, toying with Wyatt and swilling wine with her family. While searching Zelda's
Airstream trailer (conveniently located on the family property but far enough from the crumbling manse for a little
privacy), however, Ava discovers a burner phone that Zelda left behind, and soon she's getting messages from beyond
the grave via email, newspaper, Facebook, and Instagram. Perhaps Zelda's not dead after all, and she's set up an
elaborate game for her beloved Ava, a heroine rich with wry, self-deprecating insights. But as she plays her sister's
game, she comes face to face with raw, harrowing reality. In this, her startling debut novel, Dolan-Leach nimbly
entwines the clever mystery of Agatha Christie, the wit of Dorothy Parker, and the inebriated Gothic of Eugene
O'Neill. A sharp, wrenching tale of the true love only twins know.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Dolan-Leach, Caite: DEAD LETTERS." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Dec. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA473652443&it=r&asid=cad79af8e892be7e5cf49ffb745a8a3e.
Accessed 28 Sept. 2017.
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Family mysteries
Library Journal.
141.20 (Dec. 1, 2016): p93.
COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution
permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
* Dolan-Leach, Caite. Dead Letters. Random. Mar. 2017.352p. ISBN 9780399588853. $27; ebk. ISBN
9780399588860. F
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Ava Antipova can't believe that her twin sister, Zelda, is dead. Twenty months after fleeing to Paris, Ava is stunned by
news that Zelda died in a barn fire on the family's failing vineyard in Upstate New York; but ambitious Ava--Zelda was
the messy and impulsive one--never felt the loss of her twin. So Ava returns to her family home and to her divorced
mother, Nadine, whose alcoholism and dementia continually worsen. She also comes back to memories of betrayal
involving her sister and her first love, Wyatt Darling, which was a factor in causing her to leave. Then an email from
Zelda starts Ava on an alphabetical puzzle to discover not only Zelda's whereabouts but also truths about herself.
VERDICT Dolan-Leach's fiction debut is a compelling mystery with only hints of murder (because the barn doors
were chained shut from the outside) that centers on family and particularly on the power of genetics, sisterhood, and
loss. A story as compassionate and insightful as it is riveting. [See Prepub Alert, 9/26/16.]--Michele Leber, Arlington,
VA
Engel, Amy. The Roanoke Girls. Crown. Mar. 2017.288p. ISBN 9781101906668. $25; ebk. ISBN 9781101906675. F
When 15-year-old Lane Roanoke's mother commits suicide, Lane returns to the family's eponymous home in rural
Kansas--the place her mother had been so desperate to escape years before. At first, life at Roanoke seems
comfortable. Lane and her cousin Allegra have the run of the house and the undivided attention of their grandfather
Yates. But over the course of a summer, Lane begins to uncover the same dark family secrets that drove her mother
away. Herself fleeing from Roanoke eleven years later, Lane again returns to try to solve the mystery of Allegra's
disappearance--and to bring the ugly past to light. Engel (The Book of Ivy) has had success with several YA novels. In
her first foray into adult fiction, she creates a memorable cast of characters and a twisting, tangled plot that attracts
readers from the first page. VERDICT This atmospheric and unsettling tale of the secrets and bonds of family, set
against the backdrop of small-town Kansas, is recommended for fans of Jeffrey Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides and
Lory Roy's Bent Road. [See Prepub Alert, 9/26/16.]--Amy Hoseth, Colorado State Univ. Lib., Fort Collins
Smith, April. Home Sweet Home. Knopf. Jan. 2017. 384p. ISBN 9781101874219. $26.95; ebk. ISBN
9781101874226. F
It's the phone call you never want to get. Smith's novel opens on Christmas Eve 1985 with Jo Kusek driving from the
airport in wintery conditions to a hospital in South Dakota. Someone bludgeoned her sister-in-law, Wendy, to death
and left for dead her brother, Lance, and nephew, Willie. Who would commit such a horrible crime in the small
community? As Jo worries about her critically injured relatives, she ponders who would want to hurt them. Could it
somehow be connected to her family's ranch? Her father's political career? Her mother's brief time as a member of the
Communist party? Her parents' trial to clear their reputations? Could it be someone she knows? Smith's novel weaves
smoothly between Jo in the hospital nervously waiting for answers and her family's epic backstory. It is a moving tale
of the Kuseks' trials and triumphs as Calvin Kusek transferred his family from New York City to Rapid City, becoming
a rancher, politician, and lawyer. VERDICT The author of the FBI Special Agent Ana Grey series (North of Montana)
and A Star for Mrs. Blake successfully switches genre gears once again with this dramatic saga with a hint of mystery.
Her fans won't be disappointed.--Susan Moritz, Silver Spring, MD
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
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March
DEBUT AUTHOR
Dead Letters
by Caite Dolan-Leach
Join now
The clues that Zelda leaves for Ava are so much more than standard mystery misdirection. They are a window into the myths a family creates around one another.
JUDGE SARAH WEINMAN
We're happy to support debut authors, including Caite Dolan-Leach with Dead Letters.
The Wicked Games You Play
By Judge Sarah Weinman
“A born creator of myths, my sister always liked to tell the story of how we were misnamed.” I knew from this first sentence that this debut thriller would be something special. For the narrator, Ava, was born minutes after her twin sister Zelda. The alphabet's reversal foreshadowed the sibling pecking order. Zelda is the wild, vibrant, larger-than-life twin. Ava is the buttoned-up, reserved, by-the-book twin. To put it in terms of stress responses, Ava, having spirited herself away from the failing family vineyard to Paris, is flight. Zelda, who stayed behind, is pure fight.
Or at least, that's how it seems on the surface. When Ava gets word of Zelda's sudden and surprising death, she returns home to the family vineyard in upstate New York. Eerie messages from her twin, apparently from beyond the grave, signal the beginning of an alphabet-themed scavenger hunt that might (or might not) prove that Zelda is, in fact, alive. Dolan-Leach plots her twists fairly and with care, and her sense of fun is infectious. There's a winning “let me entertain you” vibe that takes hold.
But I loved Dead Letters most for imbuing its froth-laden surface with real emotional heft. The stakes are high. Ava, following the sequential traps laid by Zelda, comes to devastating terms with what remained in her home even after she fled: family dysfunction, her tendency to hide from troublesome feelings about alcohol and ex-boyfriends and abandonment, and how her sister's love — and multiple betrayals — matter to Ava above all. The playful clues that Zelda leaves for Ava are so much more than standard mystery misdirection. They are a window into the myths a family creates around one another to protect from and draw closer to those we love most — the mysteries that haunt us well after we solve them.
About Caite Dolan-Leach
Caite Dolan-Leach is a writer and literary translator. She was born in the Finger Lakes region and is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin and the American University in Paris. Dead Letters is her first novel.
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A BOOK RECOMMENDATION BLOG
Dead Letters by Caite Dolan-Leach: The Book I’ll Be Recommending to Absolutely Everyone
March 7, 2017 Sarah Dickinson Fiction 24
Dead Letters, Caite Dolan-LeachFiction – Debut
Released February 21, 2017
353 Pages
Bottom Line: Read it.
Affiliate Link: Buy from Amazon
Source: Purchased (published by Random House)
Headline
This debut novel has absolutely everything and is one I’ll be recommending to just about everyone I know for a long time.
Plot Summary
When Ava Antipova gets word that her wild twin sister (Zelda) is dead, she leaves her Paris graduate program to return to her family’s vineyard in upstate New York…only to find circumstances surrounding her sister’s death that are a bit off and a message from Zelda.
Why I Read It
I never would have picked up this book on my own (I’m not a fan of the title or the cover and the premise of the story is not particularly appealing)…but Catherine at Gilmore Guide (whose reading taste I trust implicitly) said I absolutely must read it.
Major Themes
Dysfunctional families, alcoholism, degenerative illness, twins
What I Loved
It’s rare that I find a book I can comfortably categorize as “literary” AND “brain candy.” These are my favorite kinds of books to discover and are the ones I feel like I can recommend to anyone at any time. Dead Letters is the first book I’ve read in awhile that fits this description.
I knew within the first two paragraphs that I would love this book. Ava’s voice spoke to me immediately and I would later discover the crackling dialogue and snarky, occasionally morbid humor that’s right up my alley.
He has rented a flashy convertible, of course. My dad likes to travel in style, regardless of finances, seemliness, tact. He tends to think of any economic restriction as a dead-letter issue, a rule that does not apply to him.
It’s a mystery and a dysfunctional family novel (two of my favorite things) all wrapped up into one ball of alcohol-soaked perfection. There is a crime, but it’s not the center of the story. Rather, it’s a device that helps unravel the twisted dynamics of Zelda and Ava’s relationship (and their relationship with their parents), which is what this book is truly about. And I can add it to my list of winning novels that have a “crime that is not the center of the story” (My Sunshine Away, Every Last One, and Only Love Can Break Your Heart).
Dead Letters has almost all of my favorite fiction elements: a perfectly paced plot, a dysfunctional family, a mystery, great writing, snarky humor, and depth. I don’t think I’ve come across a novel as jam packed with elements that are so firmly in my wheelhouse in quite a while.
It’s a book that is fun, yet dark and morbid at the same time. There is a delightfully demented scavenger hunt that strings the reader right along for the ride, yet death and loss permeates the entire story.
There’s a sly Friday Night Lights reference!
This is a book that you just need to pick up and read. Don’t bother learning a ton about the plot beforehand…going in blind adds to the fun.
What I Didn’t Like
I HATE the cover and am not a huge fan of the title. Both make Dead Letters look like it will be type of book that’s compared to Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, then inevitably doesn’t live up to either. Though Dead Letters does have some similarities, it’s it’s own kind of wonderful.
I also think the publisher’s blurb gives away far too much information about the plot.
A Defining Quote
Maybe because we were twins, we sought a way to differentiate, to oh so rigorously sketch out our borders. You needed to say, to speak the ways you were different. I’m Ava, I’m the ambitious one; that’s Zelda, she’s the messy one. As though you could determine your own story, secure the ending you wanted through obsessive narration.
Good for People Who Like…
Stories about sisters (particularly twins), stories about mothers and daughters, dysfunctional families, accessible writing, unexpectedly funny, snarky humor.
Other Books You May Like
Another deeply dysfunctional family novel that involves a family member returning home:
The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel
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Dead Letters has absolutely everything I look for in a book!
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Tags: Accessible Writing Crime That's Not the Center of the Story Debuts Dysfunctional Families Mental Illness Mothers and Daughters Sisters Small Town Life Snarky Humor Twins Unexpected Humor
24 Responses to “Dead Letters by Caite Dolan-Leach: The Book I’ll Be Recommending to Absolutely Everyone”
Susie | Novel Visits
March 7th, 2017
I was already sold on Dead Letters, but now even more so! I WILL be reading this book. It’s just a question of when. Loved your review!!
Reply
Julia
March 7th, 2017
I started reading Dead Letters the other day and was instantly grabbed by Ava’s voice. She’s so fiery! I thought it was interesting how the author combined several clichés in one but in a way that still made the family’s dysfunctionality feel unique. Great review!
Reply
Sarah Dickinson
March 9th, 2017
I completely agree about Ava’s voice. I was sold within 2 pages!
Reply
Helen @ The Novel Connection
March 7th, 2017
I just got a copy of this in my Book of the Month box. I haven’t heard much about it but the few people I’ve seen reading have rated it very highly.
Reply
Sarah Dickinson
March 9th, 2017
I literally heard nothing about it until after it was released, which is odd. I would’ve thought there would be more marketing dollars behind this one.
Reply
AmberBug
March 7th, 2017
I’ve been hearing so much about this one, can’t wait to get to it!
Reply
Kathy @ Kathy Reads Fiction
March 7th, 2017
I’m still waiting on my copy to come from BotM – hopefully by Friday. Your enthusiasm is really coming through about this one. I agree on the cover not being great, and I can’t remember much about the synopsis. I just remember the high recommendations made for this one.
Reply
Sarah Dickinson
March 9th, 2017
Ha-well glad my intentions were coming through!
And best you forget as much of the synopsis from the blurb as possible…just start reading.
Reply
Melinda
March 8th, 2017
This sounds fascinating! I am definitely going to add it to my wishlist!
Reply
Tara
March 8th, 2017
I agree; I’m so thankful that I didn’t look to far into this one and, when you and Catherine suggested it, I simply ordered a copy and started reading! I try to do this pretty often because I am continually burned by marketing descriptions…although, as evidenced by my recent read of Behind Her Eyes, I am still a sucker for some of them – ha!
Reply
Sarah Dickinson
March 9th, 2017
I know, right?! I feel like people are getting burned by the Lisa Bellow description right now, which makes me really sad. Going in expecting a pure page turner, which is not what that book is…but I’m really enjoying it so far!
Reply
Naomi
March 8th, 2017
I wouldn’t have looked twice at this book, either, because of the cover. That’s what book bloggers are for, right?!
Reply
Sarah Dickinson
March 9th, 2017
Yep! Catherine at Gilmore Guide started it all – thank god for her 🙂
Reply
Catherine @ Book Club Librarian
March 9th, 2017
This one is on my radar screen, so I’m so glad you are recommending it. I’m just waiting for a library copy to become available.
Reply
Lauren
March 9th, 2017
I don’t want to read too much of this because my copy just showed up and I’m going to try and read it on a plane tomorrow. Will come back and revisit. I’m hearing such great things from all fronts, can’t wait to dig in! I did happen to see the FNL bit while skimming, will have fun looking for that!
Reply
Sarah Dickinson
March 9th, 2017
Yes, go in blind and enjoy!
Reply
Catherine
March 12th, 2017
Whew- glad this recommendation worked so well! And I completely agree: What is up with that cover? It doesn’t make sense at all. Thank God, we ignored it.
I also do not understand why there was no pre-pub noise about this one. I didn’t see it as a recommendation in any of the magazines.
What do you think about movie potential? All that booze, identical twins, and a mystery? Could be amazing.
Reply
Lauren
March 14th, 2017
I didn’t like this one as much as you two did, but it certainly entertained. I hadn’t even thought about movie potential, but I think it would translate well. Do we have any acting twins other than the Olsens? I actually think they would fit the bill rather perfectly.
Reply
Sarah Dickinson
March 14th, 2017
Awh – sorry you didn’t love it as much 🙁 Interesting thought on the Olsens…I’d sort of thought one actress would play both girls. And I hadn’t really settled on anyone yet…BUT I’m thinking Liam Hemsworth for Wyatt??
Reply
Sarah Dickinson
March 14th, 2017
I’m so baffled as to the lack of pre-pub noise on this one. I actually have a gym buddy who is in a book club with a Random House marketing person, so I told her to ask! Will let you know what I hear.
Movie – hmmm…my first thought is that Liam Hemsworth must play Wyatt. And would be interested to see how they handled Zelda. Would they do her character in flashbacks? Do think the plot and snappy dialogue would be great movie material.
Reply
carrie
March 17th, 2017
I just added this to my “to-read” list. very exited about!
Reply
Sarah Dickinson
March 21st, 2017
Yay – I think it’s up your alley! Hope I’m right about that 🙂
Reply
Katie @ Doing Dewey
March 20th, 2017
I’d not heard much about this, but I’m very interested based on your review!
“It’s rare that I find a book I can comfortably categorize as “literary” AND “brain candy.”<– I agree that this is rare! The book I've read most recently that I'd describe that way is The Possessions by Sara Murphy 🙂 Reply Sarah Dickinson March 21st, 2017 Oooh – that’s the one that was a Gone Girl AND an Atwood comp, right? I’m kind of curious… Reply Leave a Reply Your Comment Here... Name * Your Name Email (not published) * Your Email Website Your Website Post Comment Follow with Twitter Follow with Pinterest Follow with Facebook Follow with Instagram follow via bloglovin' Get Weekly Email Updates! Your Email Address Subscribe Search for a Book Search Search Affiliate Books By Category Books By Category Amazon Affiliates Disclosure Sarah's Book Shelves is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Copyright © 2017 Sarah's Book Shelves. Tweak Me theme by Nose Graze. Design by New Chapter Designs
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BOOK REVIEW: DEAD LETTERS BY CAITE DOLAN-LEACH
NATALIE XENOSJUNE 28, 2017
BOOK REVIEWSBOOKSFEATURED
As a fan of America-set novels featuring complex sibling dynamics and dysfunctional family drama, Caite Dolan-Leach’s debut had all the right ingredients to hook me in from the get go. Dead Letters is a veritable scavenger hunt of a novel that questions the bonds between sisters and the individual identities of twins against a backdrop of secrets, addiction and lies.
The dead letters of the title relate to both a series of physical letters and the letters of the alphabet, as Ava Antipova is given the news that her estranged twin sister has died in a fire. Forced to leave her graduate studies in Paris and return to her family’s vineyard in upstate New York, Ava is immediately confronted by the stifling weight of her family’s disintegrating legacy. Whilst she should be grieving her sister’s tragic and untimely demise, Ava can’t shake the feeling that she’s missing something. Zelda always was one for drama and manipulation, and her death is too perfectly set up and presented; all it’s missing is the bow.
“Death by fire was the right death for visionaries and mad women, and Zelda was both. My dark double.”
Waiting for the police to conclude their investigation and officially identify Zelda’s remains, Ava begins her own hunt for answers as she retraces her sister’s final weeks. She discovers a series of hidden clues that indicate the fire was an elaborate ruse and Zelda could still be alive. If A is for Ava and Z is for Zelda, what do the letters in-between stand for? Knowing that the missing letters hold the answer to her twin’s disappearance, Ava embarks on Zelda’s painstakingly planned game and finds herself sucked back into her family’s toxic world.
This is as much a morbid scavenger hunt for readers as it is for Ava. Each new clue leads to more questions that lead to more clues, as Zelda uses her bond with her twin to anticipate each stage of the game. Despite being estranged, Ava and Zelda share a connection born from sharing a womb, but they also share a competitive nature that they’ve always struggled to suppress. Zelda’s final scheme acknowledges the rivalry they tried and failed to avoid as children, each twin believing they know the other one better than they know themselves.
Ava and Zelda are complex characters with ingrained issues transferred from their dysfunctional parents; an emotionally closed father with a carefully constructed façade and a bitter, alcoholic mother who’s withering away as a result of a degenerative disease. The twins are in every way a product of their upbringing and they’re almost compelled to keep making the same mistakes – relying on alcohol and pills to dull the emotional pain and unhappiness.
“I stop in exasperation and almost storm out of the Airstream, fed up with myself and with my sister, filled with that itchy combination of fatigue and anxiety that my entire family produces in me. An allergic reaction for which antihistamines can do nothing. I want a drink.”
Filled with devious deceit and taut twists, Dead Letters wears its literary influences firmly on its sleeve. It has the macabre, melancholy mystery of Edgar Allan Poe and the contemporary domestic thrills of Gillian Flynn that makes you slide to the end of your seat as you read. There’s an almost poetic quality to Dolan-Leach’s writing, as she structures her novel around the alphabet and uses alliteration when speaking from Zelda’s point of view through her letters.
Like the Antipova family itself, Dead Letters is complicated, fascinating and dangerously thrilling. It cleverly plays the two sisters against each other, revealing their weaknesses, fears, loyalties and unstable natures. The cat and mouse game unfolds slowly and effectively, leading up to an end that, whilst a little abrupt after such a long and elaborate build up, is a rewarding payoff for following the letters from A-Z. It’s a compelling psychological mystery that’s difficult to resist.
★★★★
Dead Letters was published by Corvus on 4 May 2017
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CAITE DOLAN-LEACHDEAD LETTERS
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Review: Dead Letters by Caite Dolan-Leach
BY 1GIRL2MANYBOOKS ON JUNE 15, 2017
Dead Letters
Caite Dolan-Leach
Corvus (Atlantic Books)
2017, 332p
Copy courtesy Allen & Unwin
Blurb {from the publisher/Goodreads.com}:
Ava doesn’t believe it when the email arrives to say that her twin sister is dead. It’s not grief or denial that causes her scepticism – it just feels too perfect to be anything other than Zelda’s usual manipulative scheming. And Ava knows her twin.
Two years after she left, vowing never to speak to Zelda again after the ultimate betrayal, Ava must return home to retrace her errant sister’s last steps. She soon finds notes that lead her on a twisted scavenger-hunt of her twin’s making.
Letter by letter, Ava unearths clues to her sister’s disappearance: and unveils harrowing truths of her own. A is for Ava, and Z is for Zelda, but deciphering the letters in-between is not so simple…
This book was…..messed up.
Two years ago Ava fled her home, the family vineyard in the Fingers Lakes region for France and postgraduate study. Her twin, Zelda, had betrayed her, as had someone else. Their family was falling apart – their father gone, their mother a victim of disease that had ravaged her body and mind. Ava couldn’t escape fast enough and she stays away for two years, until she receives the email that her sister and twin is dead. She comes home immediately but she doesn’t believe it to be true. This is exactly the sort of crazy scheme Zelda might do in order to get what she wants. Ava soon finds herself seeking clues, all the letters of the alphabet, from A to Z. And when she gets to the end, she will have the truth.
Ava is even by her own admission (and that of several other characters) a difficult character. She’s somewhat standoffish, quite cold, not affectionate or loving. To be honest when you look at her upbringing and her life it’s not really hard to see why she might be like that. Her mother is a vicious narcissist, perhaps trapped by her own demons and her father traded in one family for several others years ago.
The family own a struggling (very struggling, as Ava finds out) vineyard. The twins’ parents are extraordinarily heavy drinkers and the twins themselves have been steadily drinking since their teenage years. To be honest, the amount of alcohol consumed in this novel was a real struggle for me…..I don’t come from a family that drinks much and I left behind the teen years of drinking long ago. I can take it or leave it now but the bottles religiously consumed day after day became quite exhausting. Life was a neverending circle of drinking until sick or passing out and getting up the next day and doing it all over again. No wonder everyone was basically a wreck. I’m not sure they’d had a sober thought for years.
The mystery is decent – if Zelda isn’t dead, why has she faked her death and left this elaborate scheme for her sister? And if she is actually dead…why has she left this elaborate scheme for her sister? It’s clear that Ava and Zelda have a lot of unresolved issues from what happened two years ago. Zelda is sorry, but in the way that careless people are sorry. Like she’s saying it because she thinks that’s what she needs to say in order to get Ava to forgive her and restore the status quo. Because we only ever see Zelda through Ava’s eyes and through some letters she writes, most of which revolve around this game, it was difficult to get a true handle on her personality but what I did know made it hard to sympathise with her throughout most of the book. I don’t think it was really until nearly the end of the book that I began to understand Zelda a little. Began to understand them both as a unit.
I enjoyed parts of this – I liked Ava’s analytical mind and the way in which she skipped from clue to clue. The game however, seemed to rely on a lot of things being done at the right times, etc in order to work and at times it was a bit difficult to believe that things would go so smoothly, despite how well the twins knew each other. I did find the alcohol distracting though, the entire story revolves around it and it got a bit tedious if I’m honest. I understand that centering the story around a vineyard means grog is going to be a big part of it. But it was more than that. It was an obsession with pretty much everyone in the book a raging alcoholic, including some being self-aware about it but with kind of a philosophical shrug and a “meh what can you do” type thing. Maybe a lot of the problems in this novel might’ve been reduced greatly if everyone had just sobered the heck up for a bit.
It kept me interested, I will say that. I did greatly want to find out what had happened to Zelda, if she was really dead or if like Ava believed, she had staged this whole thing as some sort of elaborate plot. However there were things that I didn’t enjoy and things that I felt perhaps went a bit too far for plausible believability. It’s certainly an interesting debut though and I did enjoy quite a lot of the writing so I would definitely read something by this author again in the future.
6/10
Book #105 of 2017
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You are here: Home / Read / Book Review: “Dead Letters” by Caite Dolan-Leach
BOOK REVIEW: “DEAD LETTERS” BY CAITE DOLAN-LEACH
April 18, 2017 ·
Book Review: "Dead Letters" The Cozie
Book Review: "Dead Letters" The Cozie
THE BASICS
Title: Dead Letters
Author: Caite Dolan-Leach
Genre: Mystery & Suspense
Structure: Linear first-person narration
First Line: “A born creator of myths, my sister always liked to tell the story of how we were misnamed.”
THE GOOD
If I’m being honest, this book is “eh”. It’s average. I will list out a couple things I liked about it below as per usual! However, I’m not sure if it would have been at the top of my list.
This is a debut novel. As I was saying above, it’s average. I wasn’t in love with the storyline (see below), but I did love Dolan-Leach’s writing. I think the author is a magnificent and down-to-earth writer. I’d be willing to read more of her books in the future, for sure.
It was exciting for me, as the reader, to figure out the game! Honestly, this is not one of those “scary” mystery thrillers, but rather more of a mind game. I love books with a twist like that so it was fun for me to figure it out! I don’t want to spoil anything, so you all will have to figure it out for yourself!
I will say the ending was a surprise, but I think it stayed true to the book. I think one of the main premises of the novel was “nothing is at it seems” and Dolan-Leach stayed right on that path. I was totally convinced it was going to end a different way, so I was surprised when it took a turn! I wouldn’t say I’m “glad” about it taking a turn (honestly, any turn would have been a nightmare), but I am glad that she caught me off guard! I think that’s what makes for a good thriller.
Lastly, I do like how the author played with the two main characters. Given that they were identical twins, I loved that the author made them distinct individuals, but allowed them to slip between the lines of reacting in a way that was typical for the other twin. It was interesting to watch it happen in subtle ways throughout the book.
THE BAD
I kept waiting for there to be a new twist on the overdone “identical twins, one lives, one dies, is the dead one really dead?” tale, but I felt like there wasn’t anything huge. The stakes weren’t high enough. Where I felt Dolan-Leach was going to push the envelope, up the stakes, and go down the twisty road, she would avoid it and take the more typical path. I think that was the most disappointing for me. This novel really had potential to set the bar high for future mysteries, but I think it settled into the “safe zone”: good enough, but not all that it could be.
This isn’t a dealbreaker for me, but it certainly is for some people. I did not like any of the characters. I’m all for characters having flaws. However, there wasn’t a single one that I could even fall in like with. Major bummer for me, but not a dealbreaker.
As per usual, I’ll let you know if there’s any profanity to look out for in case you’re sensitive (or someone you know). There is some profanity and a display of alcoholism. As always, these things don’t bother me in the least, but I do know some that would want to be aware of it.
THE SWEET SPOTS
In this section, I cover some of my deeper, personal thoughts. Books are meant to make you think. I always think the best books are the ones that help you discover pieces of yourself.
Did this book remind you of anything that has happened to you?: Well, considering I don’t have an identical twin sister, it was a little hard to connect to this book. I did have a father who liked to pull disappearing acts, but the book wasn’t really centered on that aspect of the story.
Did this book give you any new ideas of yourself?: I think it taught me to be bolder. A lot of the heartache in the book wouldn’t have happened if the characters weren’t so codependent on each other. I think we all have a tendency to lean towards codependency (I know myself, especially), and it’s amazing to see what would and could happen if we just let go.
What lesson did you learn?: Things are never as they seem. Be patient and wait to see what answers arise because it’s rarely ever the first answer. Life is not always as obvious as we think it is.
CONCLUSION
To summarize, I thought this was a good book. If you’re not a mystery-thriller buff, then don’t start here. Go find some other great mystery novels. However, if you’re well into that world, you may like this one. In fact, I know many who did enjoy this book. For a first novel, this is a pretty good attempt. I think we can expect some great works from Caite Dolan-Leach in her future works, but I don’t think this will be one of them mainly because the storyline stayed in the “safe zone”. If I had to give it stars, I’d probably rate it a 3/5.
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