The Sisters

Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

1. What was your initial reaction to Jonas’s role as the narrator? How did having the sisters’ story filtered through his obsessive, and sometimes unreliable, perspective shape your experience of the novel?

2. Khemiri uses autofiction, blending his own life with the narrative in a way that recalls authors like Karl Ove Knausgaard in My Struggle or Ben Lerner in Transcription. How did this mix of fact and fiction impact your connection to the story and its characters? Did knowing that the author shares traits with the narrator change how you interpreted the novel’s events?

3. The story spans decades and is filled with dramatic turns, from the JAS 39 Gripen crash to Evelyn’s disappearance. Which character’s journey or storyline resonated with you most deeply, and what made it so memorable?

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

1. Ina, Evelyn, and Anastasia each fall into a distinct family role: the responsible caregiver, the restless performer, and the rebellious artist. Did you find yourself identifying more with one sister’s way of navigating the world? How do these roles seem to both protect and limit each sister as she grows up?

2. Jonas personifies his internal critic as “the Hyena,” creating a story around it to cope with it. Have you ever used stories in a similar way, giving names to experiences and phenomena to gain control of them? How did you succeed with this attempt?

3. The friendship between Evelyn and Cecilia fractures under the pressure of professional competition. Think about a time when a shared ambition or a major life change altered a close friendship. What challenges does that situation present, and how does it compare to Evelyn and Cecilia’s story?

4. How much does your heritage figure into your sense of identity? What does the novel suggest about the process of forging an identity when you feel caught between different cultures or communities, as Jonas and the sisters do?

5. What purpose does family mythology, like the story of the great-grandfather at Rockefeller Center, serve for the sisters? Think about a story in your own family or community that helps define its identity.

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

1. The novel is set against the backdrop of a changing Sweden, exploring the racism and pressure to assimilate faced by children of immigrants. In what ways do the characters’ experiences in the Drakenberg housing project reflect broader societal tensions? Do these challenges feel relevant to conversations about immigration and identity happening today?

2. The 1993 JAS 39 Gripen crash is a real historical event woven into the plot. How did including this national trauma affect the story’s believability and emotional weight for you?

3. The novel contrasts the Mikkola family’s “curse” with Jonas’s clinical diagnosis of depression. What does this juxtaposition reveal about how societies understand and talk about mental health and generational trauma?

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

1. How does the novel’s fragmented, non-linear structure reinforce the theme of memory’s subjective and unreliable nature? What effect did the way the book jumps through time have on you as a reader?

2. The family curse acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy for each sister. In what ways do you see this play out in their choices and relationships? Does learning its true, non-magical origin change your interpretation of their lives?

3. In what ways does Jonas’s unreliability as a narrator force you to question the “truth” of the Mikkola family story? How does his obsession with them ultimately reflect his own search for identity?

4. Consider another story of intense sibling bonds shaped by a difficult upbringing, like Tara Westover’s memoir, Educated. How does the dynamic between Ina, Evelyn, and Anastasia compare to the relationships in a story like that? What makes their connection unique?

5. Basketball courts and big cities like New York serve as important settings. How do these different physical spaces represent escape, identity, and confrontation for the characters throughout the novel?

6. Evelyn, Ina, and Anastasia cope with their shared trauma in very different ways. What does each sister’s approach to love, career, and family reveal about her core personality and her struggle to break free from the past?

Encourage imaginative and creative connections to the book.

1. Evelyn spends years working on a monologue titled The Sisters but never finishes it. If you were to write the final monologue, what would be its central theme? Would it be a story of tragedy, resilience, forgiveness, or something else entirely?

2. Imagine you’re casting a film adaptation of the novel. Which actors would you choose to play the three sisters and Jonas? What specific qualities would you look for to capture the essence of each character?

3. The novel ends with the sisters reunited but in a fragile state. Picture their lives five years after the hospital scene. Where do you think they are, and what is their relationship with one another like? Has Evelyn stayed in Sweden, and have they finally managed to break the cycle of their family’s trauma?