Dead Letters (Dolan-Leach)

Dead Letters 
Caite Dolan-Leach, 2017
Random House
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399588853


Summary
A missing woman leads her twin sister on a twisted scavenger hunt in this clever debut novel that will keep you guessing until the end—for readers of Gone Girl and The Girl Before.

“Ahoy, Ava! Welcome home, my sweet jet-setting twin! So glad you were able to wrest yourself away from your dazzling life in the City of Light; I hope my ‘death’ hasn’t interrupted anything too crucial.”

Ava Antipova has her reasons for running away: a failing family vineyard, a romantic betrayal, a mercurial sister, an absent father, a mother slipping into dementia. n Paris, Ava renounces her terribly practical undergraduate degree, acquires a French boyfriend and a taste for much better wine, and erases her past.

Two years later, she must return to upstate New York. Her twin sister, Zelda, is dead.

Even in a family of alcoholics, Zelda Antipova was the wild one, notorious for her mind games and destructive behavior. Stuck tending the vineyard and the girls’ increasingly unstable mother, Zelda was allegedly burned alive when she passed out in the barn with a lit cigarette.

But Ava finds the official explanation a little too neat. A little too Zelda. Then she receives a cryptic message—from her sister.

Just as Ava suspected, Zelda’s playing one of her games. In fact, she’s outdone herself, leaving a series of clues about her disappearance. With the police stuck on a red herring, Ava follows the trail laid just for her, thinking like her sister, keeping her secrets, immersing herself in Zelda’s drama and her outlandish circle of friends and lovers.

Along the way, Zelda forces her twin to confront their twisted history and the boy who broke Ava’s heart. But why? Is Zelda trying to punish Ava for leaving, or to teach her a lesson? Or is she simply trying to write her own ending?

Featuring a colorful, raucous cast of characters, Caite Dolan-Leach’s debut thriller takes readers on a literary scavenger hunt for clues concealed throughout the seemingly idyllic wine country, hidden in plain sight on social media, and buried at the heart of one tremendously dysfunctional, utterly unforgettable family. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Finger Lakes region, New York, USA
• Education—Trinity College (Dublin); American University of Paris
• Currently—lives in Paris, France


Caite Dolan-Leach is an American writer and translator currently living in Paris, France. Born in a small town in the Finger Lake region of upstate New York, she studied French in high school; by her senior year, as she claims in a Paris Review Daily interview…

French was the only class I bothered to attend with any diligence. I was too busy organizing my escape to far-flung climes; a foreign language was the most likely thing to help me secure this imagined, overseas future.

In her first "escape to farflung climes," Dolan-Leach attended Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. She has since lived in Italy, South Africa, and France, where she attended the American University of Paris and now lives.

Dolan-Leach's first novel, Dead Letters, was published in 2017, and she has co-translated of two other novels: Orphans (U.S., 2014) by Hadrien Laroche and Newspaper (U.S., 2015) by Edouard Leve. (Adapted from various online sources.)

Book Reviews
Dolan-Leach’s clever thriller explores the fraying ties that bind twin sisters.… When it comes, the answer may feel somewhat contrived, but on the way to it readers will enjoy this full-bodied novel about a family of vintners.
Abigail Meisel - New York Times Book Review


Ava, the star of this atmospheric debut, isn’t convinced her calculating twin sister, Zelda, is really dead—especially after she starts getting enigmatic emails from Zelda’s account, propelling her on a complicated hunt for the truth (The Must List).
Entertainment Weekly


The disappearance of Ava’s wild-child twin is just the beginning of this roller-coaster read that’s as enthralling as it is WTF?!
Cosmopolitan
 

(Starred review.) [A] smart, dazzling mystery with a twist that…leaves the reader hunting for the next clue. Dolan-Leach revels in toying with both Ava and her audience, placing small hints and red herrings throughout her text, and the result is captivating.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) [A] compelling mystery with only hints of murder…that centers on family and particularly on the power of genetics, sisterhood, and loss. A story as compassionate and insightful as it is riveting.  —Michele Leber, Arlington, VA
Library Journal


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’s domestic psychological thrillers.
Booklist


Ava discovers a burner phone that Zelda left behind, and soon she's getting messages from beyond the grave.… Dolan-Leach nimbly entwines the clever mystery of Agatha Christie [and] the wit of Dorothy Parker.… A sharp, wrenching tale of the true love only twins know.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Dead Letters…then take off on your own:

1. In what ways are the twins different from one another, and how are they similar? Describe their relationship, as well as the different path in life each has followed.  Why, for instance, did Ava run off while Zelda stayed put?

2. What do the "dead letters" tell us about each of the young women?

3. What role does Nadine play in all of this? What do you think of her?

4. At what point does Ava suspect that her sister is still alive, and why? What about you—did you think likewise?

5. What red=herrings (false leads) does Caite Dolan-Leech set out for readers to lead us off track.

6. Did the ending catch you off guard? If not…when did you begin to suspect the truth? Go back over the text and suss out the hints that were there all the time. Did you pick up on any of them…or skip right over them (come on, be honest).

7. How does the twist change your understanding of the novel's title?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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