A debut novel about Agatha, whose devotion to a widow with dementia (and an inconvenient attachment to her daughter’s grave) sparks a radical reckoning with life, loss, and love’s aftermath.
Deviously plotted ... This is a strange, fresh story about artistic ambition and personal autonomy willingly abridged for love ... Deliciously weird ... In its ingeniously duplicitous narrative structure, I Am Agatha is reminiscent of Patricia Highsmith's magnificent Ripley novels.
Debut novelist Foley crafts a spare and skillful story, giving Agatha a unique narrative voice that lets the sarcastic yet vulnerable narrator reveal herself at her own pace. Readers drawn to deep explorations of character and the complex relationships in Sigrid Nunez’s The Friend (2018), Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping (1980), and Elizabeth Strout’s novels will find much to appreciate in this remarkable debut that lingers long after the final page is turned.
