I should probably say “my sister with whom I share a father.” It’s a mouthful, but I would rather say that than hurt him again. So now I use the word very self-consciously, if at all. But it hurt him to hear me describe his mother in that way. There are no half people.” I always thought of it as just a description, and I didn’t think it was offensive, because it’s reflexive. I was giving a reading, and during the Q&A I mentioned my “half sisters.” My nephew in the audience said, “Don’t say ‘half,’ Auntie. When you use the expression half sister, why do you put the word half in quotation marks? You cannot get local bigamy off the ground unless one of the women is willing to work with you.” It was all I could do to keep from running out of the bar to get home and start writing. The first line, “My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist,” jumped into my head, as clearly as though someone had spoken into my ear. One of my girlfriends looked up from her margarita and said, “You know, he had to have some help from the inside. While enjoying a night out with a bunch of friends, we were discussing one of the many cases you hear about-a man dies and the other grieving widow shows up with her stair-step kids. When I was a little girl, with only brothers, I used to fantasize about having two big sisters far away who would love me, dress me up, listen to me talk, et cetera. The link between my own personal obsession and this fictional story was inspired quite accidentally. They were born before my father met my mother, and they grew up in another state and led completely separate lives from me and from each other. I have two sisters with whom I share a father, but we each have different mothers.

I have always been intrigued by the idea of “half” sisters. What was your inspiration for Silver Sparrow? Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage, talks all about sisters, Atlanta in the 1980’s, and her new book, Silver Sparrow.

Silver sparrow by tayari jones