Wise Children

By Angela Carter

Subjects: Older women, Aged women, Twins, London (england), fiction, Fiction, Families, Fiction, family life, British and irish fiction (fictional works by one author), Sisters, fiction, Women entertainers, Twins, fiction, Illegitimate children, Open Library Staff Picks, Family, Sisters, Fiction, family life, general

Description: In their heyday on the vaudeville stages of the early twentieth century, Dora Chance and her twin sister, Nora -- unacknowledged the daughters of Sir Melchior Hazard, the greatest Shakespearean actor of his day -- were known as the Lucky Chances, with private lives as colorful and erratic as their careers. But now, at the age of 75, Dora is typing up their life story, and it is a tale indeed the Angela Carter tells. A writer known for the richness of her imagination and wit as well as her feminist insights into matters large and small, she created in *Wise Children* an effervescent family saga that manages to celebrate the lore and magic of show business while also exploring the connections between parent and child, the transitory and the immortal, authenticity and falsehood.