26A

The Hunter family lives at 26 Waifer Avenue in North London, and includes Aubrey and Ida (his Nigerian wife), two older daughters, and the identical twins Georgia and Bessi, who have dubbed their attic sleeping loft "26A." Diana Evans's novel follows the twins through the 1980s and '90s, as the family move to Nigeria when the girls are eight years old. There, Georgia is raped by a servant--an event that she tells to no one, even Bessi. As the two grow up, Georgia gradually becomes disturbed and suicidal, a contrast to Bessi's carefree adolescence and young womanhood. Evans is a twin herself who has based this story partly on her own family.