Publication Date: May 6, 2025
With the haunting, romantic voyeurism of The Virgin Suicides and the atmosphere and emotional intensity of Where the Crawdads Sing, an intoxicating Southern Gothic debut novel about identical triplets whose lives are devastated when their burgeoning desires turn deadly.
Identical triplets Baby A, Baby B, and Baby C Binderup were welcomed into the world as their mother was ushered out of it, leaving them nameless and in the care of their Gram, Isadora. Nineteen years later, the triplets work at their Gram’s crumbling golf course in Longshadow, Texas, where the ever-watchful eyes of the town observe them serving up glasses of ice-cold lemonade to golfers, swimming in the murky waters of the neighboring bayou, or slipping t-shirts off their sunburnt shoulders in hopes of attracting the kind of attention they are only beginning to understand.
Cautious Baby B watches as lustful Baby A and introverted Baby C find matches among the town boys. Even Baby B has noticed that the town’s golden boy seems to be intrigued by her, only her. Just as each girl’s desire to be seen for herself is becoming fulfilled, a seemingly trivial kiss is bestowed on the wrong sister, leading to a moment of unspeakable violence that will upend the triplets’ world forever.
Pulsating with menace and narrated with hypnotic lyricism, Girls with Long Shadows is an electrifying literary thriller that captures how female teenage angst can turn lethal when insecurities are weaponized and sibling bonds are severed. Tense, lush, and painfully beautiful, it forces us to consider the lengths to which we will go to claim our own personhood.
At 19, the three Binderup sisters easily stand out in their small Texas town with their identical looks. In fact, they are pretty much treated as a singular unit.
That sets the stage for Girls with Long Shadows by Tennessee Hill. Having lost their mother at birth, they live with their grandmother. The story picks up in the summer as the triplets are working at the family golf course.
It’s a coming-of-age storyline as the three girls—Baby A, Baby B, and Baby C—try to develop their own identities with disastrous results. The fact the girls are nameless (minus the Baby alphabet reference) tends to be a significant distractor.
Aside from that, the pace of the story is slow and somewhat hard to follow in places. As a result, it’s challenging to form a bond with the characters. The interactions between the sisters made me feel like I was missing something in spite of their fascinating conversations.
Girls with Long Shadows offers an exploration into the lives of three sisters whose efforts at individuality lead to devastating consequences.
Tennessee Hill holds an MFA from North Carolina State University. Her work has been featured in Poetry magazine, Best New Poets, Southern Humanities Review, Adroit Journal, Arkansas International, and elsewhere. She is a native of South Texas, where she still lives and teaches with her husband and their dog.
