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“Atmospheric and quietly powerful, The Shared Life of Egan and Lucian explores twinship, love, and identity on a Maine island where memory and rivalry bind two lives. A striking debut about family—what holds, what loosens, and what we cannot leave behind.” — Adrienne Brodeur, author of Wild Game and Little Monsters
The McCauleys have raised their sons on Shep’s Island, just off the coast of Maine: Egan wants to be a professional athlete, Lucian, a painter, following in the footsteps of their complicated and distant mother. Growing up in the wake of a childhood accident that marked both boys—one physically, one emotionally—they are inseparable until Lucian, quietly, begins to wonder who he might be with no mirror image walking beside him.
On a trip abroad, Lucian meets Lea, who follows him home to idyllic Shep’s Island. When a shocking family secret comes to light, Lea flees back to the mainland, not with Lucian—but with his twin, Egan, whose connection with Lea is immediate and undeniable.
The years will pass with Lea caught between the two brothers. Even when she decides to begin a life on Shep’s Island with one of them, fate will continue to bring these three into one another’s orbit. The island, with its shifting shoreline and harsh beauty, echoes the changing colors of their familial and romantic love. Rose Smith’s debut novel feels like an instant classic as it traces the McCauleys across the seasons and the decades, mapping the slow erosion and quiet resilience of people who have loved each other imperfectly and at great cost.
The Shared Life of Egan and Lucian
ADVANCE PRAISE
"A luminous debut. . . The author shines in her complex depictions of the characters’ relationships and their double lives. It’s a heartrending exploration of passion and the various forms love can take."
Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
“The Shared Life of Egan and Lucian doesn’t read like a debut novel, but that—somehow—is what it is. Characters as vividly real as your neighbors? An unforgettable setting? A propulsive plot? They’re all here, and Rose Smith is a writer to watch.”
Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls and the North Bath Fool novels
“Atmospheric and quietly powerful, The Shared Life of Egan and Lucian explores twinship, love, and identity on a Maine island where memory and rivalry bind two lives. A striking debut about family—what holds, what loosens, and what we cannot leave behind.”
Adrienne Brodeur, author of Wild Game and Little Monsters
“With graceful prose and an attentive eye for the complexities and contradictions of love, Rose Smith has fashioned a saga of family romance and betrayal that held me in its grip from its opening sentence through to its bracing end.”
Marisa Silver, author of At Last
“The Shared Life of Egan and Lucian is a celebration of both an extraordinary family and the way the intensities of some of our most passionate bonds can weather any number of demoralizing secrets and betrayals. It’s also masterful on the way that that same fierce focus can blind even the most self-aware. Rose Smith’s debut is an arresting and lyrical reminder of all there is to cherish and how quickly it can all go away.”
Jim Shepard, author of The Queen of Bad Influences
“What a lovely, captivating novel! Rose Smith smoothly navigates a memorable story of twin brothers and the woman who loves them both. Her prose is luscious, and she has much to show us about love and art and parenthood and so much else. And I don’t think I’ve ever read a more affecting description of Maine’s everchanging and often devastating landscape. Brava.”
Monica Wood, author of How to Read a Book
"Smith’s debut has much to recommend it, particularly the beautifully evoked settings, not just the island but also Buenos Aires and, briefly, New York, as well as the detailed descriptions of artistic process. . . Bad blood between brothers drives a dramatic plot grounded by a strong sense of place. A promising debut."
Kirkus Reviews