Three Girls and Their Brother A Novel

Now that it's all over, everybody is saying it was the picturethat stupid picture was behind every disaster. . . . They may be the granddaughters of a famous literary critic, but what really starts it all is Daria, Polly, and Amelia Heller's stunning red hair. Out of the blue one day, The New Yorker calls and says that they want to feature the girls in a glamorous spread shot by a world-famous photographer, and before long these three beautiful nobodies from Brooklyn have been proclaimed the new "It" girls. But with no parental guidanceMom's a former beauty queen living vicariously through her daughters, and Dad is nowhere to be foundthe three girls find themselves easy prey for the sharks and piranhas of show business. Posing in every hot fashion magazine, tangling with snarling fashonistas and soulless agents, skipping school and hitting A-list parties, the sisters are caught up in a whirlwind rise to fame that quickly spirals out of control. When Amelia, the youngest of the threewho never really wanted to be a model in the first placeappears in an Off-Broadway play, the balance of power shifts, all the pent-up resentment and pressure comes to a head, and the girls' quiet, neglected brother reaches a critical point of virtual breakdown. And against the odds, even as the struggle for fame threatens to tear the family apart, the Hellers begin to see that despite the jealousy, greed, and uncertainty that have come to define their relationships, in the celebrity world of viciousness and betrayal, all they really have is one another. Narrated in four parts, from the perspective of each sibling,Three Girls and Their Brotheris a sharp, perceptive, and brilliantly written debut novel from an acclaimed playwright. From the Hardcover edition.

THERESA REBECK’s plays include Bad Dates, Omnium Gatherum (a Pulitzer finalist), The Scene, and Mauritius, which won Boston’s prestigious IRNE and Elliot Norton Award and premiered on Broadway in 2007. Rebeck has also won the Peabody, the Writer’s Guild of America Award for Episodic Drama, the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award, the National Theatre Conference Award, and the William Inge New Voices Playwriting Award. She holds a Ph.D. from Brandeis University and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.


From the Hardcover edition.