From its opening sentence, Canadian writer Alix Ohlin’s fifth novel challenges our expectations. Narrated by Lark, who is both Robin’s sister and Scottie’s mother, Dual Citizens comprises one long flashback that follows the two sisters from childhood into their mid-thirties, culminating with the arrival of Scottie — a child whose identity or importance isn’t revealed until the final pages, by which point most readers will have become so engrossed in the history of her mother and aunt that they’ll have forgotten about her.
Lark and Robin were raised by a beautiful but indifferent mother. Marianne had her daughters young, with two different fathers, at a time in her life when she was ill-equipped for motherhood. Ohlin never explores her motivations for having or keeping them. Marianne’s parenting style, a form of benign neglect, makes it clear that the everyday obligations of caring for a child are an unwelcome distraction to her. It is Lark who follows and cares for her younger sister “less out of a desire to protect her than because I had no other friends.” She braids Robin’s hair, makes their meals and gets them both to school. And when an elderly neighbor recognizes that Robin is a musical prodigy, it is left to Lark to ensure she gets the training to excel.
Lark’s voice complicates and gives depth to a plot which meanders with no sense of urgency. Her apparently unembellished descriptions of events may persuade one that she is a reliable narrator – but she often reveals critical details in a way that suggests she doesn’t quite grasp their significance. Furthermore, she is an indifferent storyteller. Everything is related with an unvarying level of emotion and emphasis. The nature of Lark’s relationships and decisions, whether healthy or unhealthy, supportive or codependent, is left entirely for the reader to assess. Ohlin embraces the flatness of her character’s inner life without judgment and seems to expect us to do the same.
Despite her attachment to Robin and Robin’s dependence on her, Lark is the first to leave home. In an untypical bid for independence, she applies for and is awarded a scholarship to a small, American college. She majors in film, makes friends and tentatively builds a life of her own. But it is short-lived. Robin, now sixteen, arrives on her doorstep and Lark (at the encouragement of adults with an interest in furthering Robin’s musical career) assumes the role of her legal guardian. The two sisters move to New York City and exist in a kind of genteel poverty. Struggling but never truly desperate. Working, attending college and pursuing their dreams.
Most people, we are told by a self-deprecating Lark, prefer Robin. Lark’s descriptions of her sister are tinged with both love and longing. You would expect there to be tension or rivalry between the sisters, even a hint of jealousy would be a welcome addition to a plot containing little conflict, but Lark is devoted to her sister. A younger sister who, despite what Lark might have us believe, is far from perfect. Robin is selfish and erratic, an only slightly more stable version of Marianne. She is also manipulative, “she knew how to bend the world to fit her needs”. It is just a matter of time before Robin leaves her sister behind, sending Lark into a downward emotional spiral and creating a rift between them which takes years to mend.
Eventually, though, Lark recovers. Separated from Robin, she even appears to thrive. She develops into a skilled film editor as the protege, and eventual lover, of a brilliant auteur. It’s a job and a relationship which suits her. Editing requires long hours of isolation and provides an opportunity to examine others without the emotional complication of human connection. Of course, the relationship is familiarly codependent. She works behind the scenes, making things convenient and comfortable for the person she loves. In exchange, she is needed. This is Lark’s preferred way of interacting with the world.
All of which changes when her partner refuses to have a child with her — something she desires suddenly and desperately. Lark decides to pursue a different route. She calls a fertility clinic and reconnects with her sister. Robin has given up her career as a concert pianist and, in a peculiar plot point, now runs a sanctuary for wolves in Canada.
Sometimes we forget that the opportunity to assert our own identities, outside of the traditional roles of wives and mothers, has been available to women for a relatively short time. And that the definition of motherhood, and all the expectations that cling to it, are only now subject to interpretation. The subsequent question of Lark’s suitability to be a mother is by far the most interesting element in what is otherwise a conventional novel. It is informed by all we know about Marianne and will learn about Robin. But, surprisingly, in a novel that reveals itself to be about the maternal bonds, it is a question nobody asks out loud. Ohlin has created a character with glaringly obvious codependency issues, low self-esteem and fear of abandonment. Yet these issues are never directly addressed or acknowledged by the other characters, even while Ohlin has seeded the text with multiple examples of not just Lark’s, but her entire family’s, dysfunction.
There is no shortage of books (or films for that matter) about beautiful, charismatic individuals, and the unfortunate siblings who are forever being caught in their shadows. Or about women struggling to have children. Ohlin assembles all the necessary ingredients for both and then veers away from the human vulnerabilities which these subjects inevitably expose. It is this very thing that makes Dual Citizens so interesting as well as frustrating. When Lark tries to explain and justify her work editing a reality television show to a friend, she might just as easily be describing the book we’ve been reading:
“I told her that reality television straddles the boundary between the real and the fictional… The audience knows it’s watching a fabricated reality and both the fabrication and the reality have equal weight.”
Ultimately, Dual Citizens is a one-sided conversation, a monologue never revealing Lark’s reasons for undertaking this journey of memory. She treats the story of her life as if it were footage she was editing for a film: “From the chaos of their lives I sculpted narrative arcs about anger and jealousy and love.” And while there’s nothing sinister in how Lark sees and interprets the world, it’s not always comfortable being inside her head.
[Published June 5, 2019 by Alfred A. Knopf. 275 pages, $25.95 hardcover]