PITTSBURGH WRITER EXPLORES HOW CHOICES CHANGE LIVES
Kit Frick’s ‘The Split’ keeps readers guessing
Sisters Jane and Esme Connor’s relationship has been strained since a car accident when they were teenagers, with Jane driving and Esme seriously injured. Now in their twenties, things haven’t gotten much better — especially after Esme, the younger of the two, storms out of their family home during a Thanksgiving meal with no explanation.
But Jane has some hope for a reconciliation when Esme eventually reaches out for help. Esme recently left her husband Mark and hopes Jane will come to New York City to give her a ride back to their childhood home. But that would mean driving in a severe storm, which brings back Jane’s panic-inducing memories of their earlier accident.
“I shift back into park and press my eyes shut. I should call Esme, tell her to take a cab or find a friend’s couch to crash on for the night. Surely I’m not her only option. But she asked me. She wants me to swoop in and saveher like I always used to whenwe were kids.”
Jane must make a choice. Take the chance and drive more than an hour to the city in a storm to get her flighty sister, or tell her that she will have to find her own way. “The Split” explores what would happen in dual, alternate timelines, each depending on the choice Jane makes.
Frick describes “The Split” as “a ‘Sliding-Doors’style thriller about two sisters, a dangerous secret, and aseemingly inconsequential choice with the power to alter both their lives.”
Kit Frick grew up in the South Hills of Pittsburgh and still remembers spending time at Eat’n Park, going to Pirates games with her family and riding the incline. As a self-described “theater kid,” she spent every weekend and summer in Oakland, taking acting classes and participating in the summer programs at the Pittsburgh Playhouse.
Frickleft the area to attend collegeat Sarah Lawrence for her bachelor’s degree and then Syracuse University for her MFA. Five years ago, Frick and her husband relocated to Pittsburgh and in 2021, she began working on “TheSplit.”
“When I sat down to write ‘The Split,’ I’d recently returned to Pittsburgh — to my childhood home, in fact, just like Jane. Also, like Jane, I’d returned to be close to my parents, who are getting older,” said Frick.
The choice to return, along with a decision to leave her job in education to pursue a career as a writer, made Frick think of decisionin a big picture sense, “about the alternative Kits out there living other — not necessarily better — lives.”
Combined with her interest in sistership, “vessels with nearly identical designs destined for entirely different fates,” Frick was inspired.
Each chapter of the book switches from one timeline to the other, one with Jane making the decision to weather the storm and drive to the city to get her sister, entitled “Home,” and the alternative timeline where Esme is left to her own devices to make her way to Connecticut, entitled “Gone” because, in this scenario, Esme goes missing.
While the concept of switching timelines can be confusing when starting the book, even with the chapter titles helping readers discern which reality they are reading about, Frick does an excellent job of keeping them separate andholding the reader’s interestuntil the epilogue.
“The Split” is a fast-paced thriller with a twist that the reader really doesn’t see coming — in any reality.