Seeing the cover for her debut novel The Sisters K was disorienting for Maureen Sun. At first, she didn’t understand what the image had to do with her novel, which is a reimagining of The Brothers Karamazov, but then realized it had everything to do with her book. Set to debut on June 11 via Unnamed Press, the book follows estranged sisters at their father’s deathbed.
The cover came from inspiration Sun had while her book was under submission when she went to an exhibit of Henry Moore’s work.
“When my editor asked me if I had any ideas for the cover,” said Sun, “I sent a couple photos I’d taken of the exhibit—”Studies of Reclining Figures (1940)” and “Standing Figures” (1942)—and a sketch I found online reminiscent of the sculptures of women I’d seen, “Three Ideas for Sculpture” (1982).”
Later, when designer Jaya Nicely was seeking inspiration, she went back to Sun’s inspiration and found the direction she needed.
“I returned to Maureen’s inspiration board and combed through Henry Moore’s work and found a couple sculptures that represented the sisters, but when I placed them on the page it still felt too harsh,” Nicely revealed. “I took one sculpture and transformed it in Photoshop with a watercolor-like texture and suddenly the balance was right. For the first time in this process I used a handwritten font to mimic the softness and movement of the figure and it felt perfect. After trying so many different versions for weeks, this final cover came together quickly. When it’s right, it’s right!”
And it was right. Sun feels the cover “invokes with such haunting poetry the visceral strangeness of identity.”
The debut author continued, “The cover in its final form conveys what I hope the reader will experience as the absorbing, thought-provoking, dark, and tender drama of the three sisters Minah, Sarah, and Esther of The Sisters K. There is a subtle lyricism to the freehand title that feels almost intimate and invites you to contemplate the softly somber shapes of blue ink. As with Moore’s “Three Ideas for Sculpture”, upon inspection you identify the basic form of a faceless person who might be distorted with sorrow or longing—or, perhaps, distorted, blotted out, pulled outward by the force of other sorrows, other passions. As with “Standing Figures”, you can’t quite tell where the figure begins and ends: the figure melds with landscape, producing a sense of inchoate embodiment. You can make out the blank face above limb-like undulations; and, extending from somewhere behind the face, an arm melting into a white fog in which other shapes emerge—an ass-like curve and crevice, a shadow like the hollow of a back or thigh, and a more distinctly formed image that might be a lower lip, a shell, a polished stone.”
You can pre-order a copy of The Sisters K here!