The Wright Sister: A Novel

Description

An epistolary novel of historical fiction that imagines the life of Katharine Wright and her relationship with her famous brothers, Wilbur and Orville Wright. On December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright flew the world's first airplane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, establishing the Wright Brothers as world-renowned pioneers of flight. Known to far fewer people was their whip-smart and well-educated sister Katharine, a suffragette and early feminist. After Wilbur passed away, Katharine lived with and took care of her increasingly reclusive brother Orville, who often turned to his more confident and supportive sister to help him through fame and fortune. But when Katharine became engaged to their mutual friend, Harry Haskell, Orville felt abandoned and betrayed. He smashed a pitcher of flowers against a wall and refused to attend the wedding or speak to Katharine or Harry. As the years went on, the siblings grew further and further apart. In The Wright Sister, Patty Dann wonderfully imagines the blossoming of Katharine, revealed in her "Marriage Diary"-in which she emerges as a frank, vibrant, intellectually and socially engaged, sexually active woman coming into her own-and her one-sided correspondence with her estranged brother as she hopes to repair their fractured relationship. Even though she pictures "Orv" throwing her letters away, Katharine cannot contain her joie de vivre, her love of married life, her strong advocacy of the suffragette cause, or her abiding affection for her stubborn sibling as she fondly recalls their shared life. An inspiring and poignant chronicle of feminism, family, and forgiveness, The Wright Sister is an unforgettable portrait of a woman, a sister of inventors, who found a way to reinvent herself.

Patty Dann has published three novels, Mermaids, Starfish and Sweet & Crazy. Her work has been translated into French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Chinese, Korean and Japanese. Mermaids was made into a movie, starring Cher, Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Science Monitor, O Magazine, The Oregon Quarterly, Redbook, More, Forbes Woman, Poets & Writers Magazine, The Writers' Handbook, Dirt:The Quirks, Habits and Passions of Keeping House, and This I Believe: On Motherhood. New York Magazine named Dann one of the "Great Teachers of NYC." She earned an MFA in writing from Columbia University and a B.A. in Art History from the University of Oregon. She has taught at the Fairfield County Writers' Studio, Sarah Lawrence Writing Institute and the West Side YMCA in NYC. Dann is married to journalist Michael Hill and has one son and two stepsons.

"The Wright Sister is a marvel-a perfect, very dear and brilliant novel whose characters are now stored in my heart like favorite, absent friends. Long live the remarkable Katharine Wright, her famous brothers, and author Patty Dann, who brought them back to life for this gobsmacked, grateful reader." - Elinor Lipman, author of Good Riddance and On Turpentine Lane "No longer hidden by history, the wind beneath Wilbur and Orville's wings--their brainy sibling Katharine-soars in The Wright Sister. Patty Dann's cunning epistolary page-turner chronicles a woman taking flight past fifty while it reflects on sexual awakening, early feminism, and the unbreakable bonds of filial love. Immensely readable!" - Sally Koslow, author of Another Side of Paradise and the international best-seller, The Late, Lamented Molly Marx "From the first sentence to the last Patty Dann captures the voice of Katharine Wright with uncanny verisimilitude. Poignant." - Sheila Kohler, author of Once We Were Sisters and Open Secrets "Dann does an amazing job of transporting readers in time by imaging Katharine's joy, her devotion to Orville, and the pain she feels from their one-sided correspondence." - Booklist