My Virtuous Sister

The novella debuts MIA 20-year-old Welsh émigrée Peddie Smout, famous as a rock star at the end of the last millennium. Among the post-9/11 rubble, her younger brother and soulmate Nate arrives in holiday-season Manhattan in search of his sister. By piecing together the ragged index cards of the makeshift diary she'd secreted in a Grand Central locker, Nate unfolds the story of previous New Year's Eve, 1999, and the brief fame of songstress Cordelia Peddie Smout, who after seducing everyone in the music business only to lose her record deal (and gain a heroin habit), finds salvation in the form of Alcoholics Anonymous—or, rather, its star member: Teddy D, at whose “sober” New Year's Eve party we encounter not a few surprises.While Peddie and Nate manage geographically to escape a physically-abusive, narcissistic bully of a father, peace of mind proves another thing entirely. A story of revenge, redemption—love and virtue.