In 1964, recent high school graduate Judie Zingerman flees her parents’ comfortable home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for the gritty streets of New York City’s Greenwich Village. Her dream? To follow in the footsteps of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and become a folk singer. Against the odds, she succeeds. But along the way, the mercurial, prickly woman at the center of Sarah Seltzer’s insightful debut novel discovers that for women, professional success and personal fulfillment are often at odds.

Thirty years later, Judie’s teenage daughter, Emma Cantor, embarks on a musical odyssey of her own. She knows that “in a family of performers, you have to fight for the stage.” Despite her mother’s disapproval, she defers admission to Brown and heads out on tour with her band, playing college spring fests and alt-rock clubs, hoping to catch the wave that has propelled artists like Jewel and Alanis Morissette to stardom.

"THE SINGER SISTERS is a fine, emotionally resonant story about the ties that bind families together and the many ways in which mothers and daughters understand (and misunderstand) each other."

Emma is trying to assert that she’s a rightful inheritor of her impressive family legacy. Judie and her older sister, Sylvia, recorded several celebrated albums as The Singer Sisters. Her dad, who performs under the name David Canticle, is an icon in his own right. Emma’s older brother, Leon, is also a musician, composer and producer --- and has more natural talent than Emma. To say that Emma has something to prove would be an understatement.

But what really drives Emma’s quest for fame is her fraught relationship with Judie. To brash Gen X rebel Emma, Judie is an enigma. She can’t fathom why her mother gave up a musical career to “play housewife.” And she’s determined not to fall into the same trap. Of course, mother and daughter are far more alike than either cares to admit, and it’s that similarity that underlies much of their conflict.

Skipping back and forth in time from the 1960s to the early 2000s, Seltzer follows the twin journeys of Judie and Emma. Each starts out confident that she knows exactly what she wants. But life often gets in the way. After her summer in the Village, young Judie makes a choice that will haunt her for the rest of her life. Decades later, when Emma discovers the truth about her mother’s past, it casts her childhood and family history in a new light.

Seltzer seems to have drawn inspiration from the lives of several famous folk and rock musicians, including Canadian singer-songwriter Kate McGarrigle, who performed with her sister and whose marriage to Loudon Wainwright III produced two children who also went on to become well-known performers. But Judie and Emma’s stories are unique, as are those of Sylvia and Rose, a young woman with a special connection to Judie and Emma. The book is told from the alternating perspectives of all four women, who each have their own, often competing, versions of the events unfolding around them.

At times, readers might wish that Seltzer had lingered a bit longer with some of her characters at key moments, particularly Sylvia, a lesbian who protects her sibling even as her struggles are often overshadowed by those of her self-involved sister. “You’re too wrapped up in your own blues to see mine,” Sylvia tells Judie shortly before she allows a sleazy label exec to assault her, hoping that it will help get the duo’s next record released.

In a world that still demands that women be pliable and pleasant, Seltzer allows her female characters the freedom to be difficult. Judie and Emma are selfish and judgmental. Judie fails to see the sacrifices her sister makes for her. And in her desperate quest for success, Emma executes a stark artistic betrayal that nearly destroys her relationship with Judie. But those missteps make both characters seem all the more real. And when a family tragedy brings them together again at the end of the book, their tentative rapprochement feels earned.

THE SINGER SISTERS is a fine, emotionally resonant story about the ties that bind families together and the many ways in which mothers and daughters understand (and misunderstand) each other.