Her first novel, "Prep," broke out in a huge way upon its 2005 release, ending up on the New York Times' Ten Best Books of the Year list; the very next year, Sittenfeld moved from high school to adult life with "The Man of My Dreams," tracking a far more depressed protagonist's lifelong quest for love. And at the very end of the Bush presidency, Sittenfeld dropped "American Wife," a novel lightly fictionalizing the life of Laura Bush as dutiful spouse to a wayward but upwardly mobile scion. The only common threads these books share are a certain sensitivity to the way in which relationships -- with friends, relatives, lovers -- change over time, and well-drawn female protagonists who are unafraid to confess their less admirable actions and impulses.

Sittenfeld has done it again, marrying her sensibility to an entirely new subject matter in "Sisterland" (out now). The sisters of the title are the twins Violet and Kate -- née Daisy -- who are born with psychic abilities. As they grow older, Violet leans into her sixth sense, building a somewhat rudimentary career out of performing readings and séances. Daisy, on the other hand, changes her name and her life, becoming the attentive mother her family never had and finding a way to abandon her extrasensory abilities.

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The  shaking started  around three in the morning, and it happened that I was already awake because I’d nursed Owen at two and then, instead of going back to sleep, I’d lain there brooding about the fight I’d had at lunch with my sister, Vi. I’d driven with Owen and Rosie in the backseat to pick up Vi, and the four of us had gone to Hacienda. We’d finished eating and I was collecting Rosie’s  stray food from the tabletop—once I had imagined I wouldn’t be the kind of mother who ordered chicken tenders for her child off the menu at a Mexican restaurant—when Vi said, “So I have a date tomorrow.”

“That’s great,” I said. “Who is it?”

Casually, after running the tip of her tongue over her top teeth to check for food, Vi said, “She’s an IT consultant, which sounds boring, but she’s traveled a lot in South and Central America, so she couldn’t be a total snooze, right?”

I was being baited, but I tried to match Vi’s casual tone as I said, “Did you meet online?” Rosie, who was two and a half, had gotten up from the table, wandered over to a ficus plant in the corner, and was smelling the leaves. Beside me in the booth, buckled into his car seat, Owen, who was six months, grabbed at a little plush giraffe that hung from the car seat’s handle.

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