Even so, it’s hard to resist the momentum of this dual coming-of-age story, and Jones’s imperfect, large-hearted heroines are not soon forgotten. Though James is far from being a smooth-talking lothario (he stutters and wears glasses “thick as a slice of Wonder bread”), other aspects of the girls’ lives – not least Dana’s big reveal – are less subtle, sometimes rather inevitable. The tinge of melodrama in that opening line resurfaces occasionally. She thinks of Dana as a “silver girl”, popular and smart, likening her to a “Barbie doll dipped in chocolate” when she first sees her.

The girls have by then met at a science fair and become pals, with plain, academically unremarkable Chaurisse eager for some of Dana’s cool to rub off on her. Still, the knowledge she holds over her half-sister electrifies the novel’s second half, which is narrated by Chaurisse, still unaware of her father’s double life. “We didn’t do damage to anyone but ourselves,” she explains. The extent to which that has warped her is palpable as Dana recalls all the times her mum, Gwen, has taken her to spy on – Gwen prefers “surveil” – James’s public family. But while Chaurisse grows up in a house in a nice part of town, and Dana and her mother live in an apartment in an altogether more rackety neighbourhood, Dana has the edge on her coddled sister in at least one respect: she’s grown up knowing about Chaurisse, whereas James has never confessed his affair to Chaurisse’s mother. By the time he met Dana’s mother, James had already been married for a decade, and Chaurisse came along when Dana was just four months old. A tale of two halves, Silver Sparrow is split – equally, unlike James himself – between his 14-year-old daughters: Dana, for whom he’s a fleeting weekly visitor, and his legitimate offspring, Chaurisse, who sees him simply as “daddy”.

Silver sparrow by tayari jones