I Am Agatha - by Nancy Foley (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

For readers of Elizabeth Strout and Sigrid Nunez, a darkly funny and moving debut novel about the unforgettable 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.

Agatha, a bristly painter fleeing her own darkness, decamps to rural New Mexico to live the reclusive life of a small-town curmudgeon. It is there she meets Alice, a mild widow with a deepening case of dementia who keeps steady vigil at her daughter's backyard grave. Despite Agatha's rough edges and fierce aversion to sentimentality, she surprises herself by falling in love, and her well-worn convictions begin to upend.

As Alice's condition worsens, Agatha hatches a plan for them to live together at her remote residence at Mesa Portales. But when Alice's wayward son comes along with different ideas--and Alice suddenly goes missing--Agatha takes matters into her own hands with the help of a faithful thirteen-year-old-neighbor, a pair of shovels, and her trusty pickup, embarking on an unusual mission that calls into question whether some secrets are better kept buried.

Sharp, watchful, at once thrillingly perceptive and hidden from herself, Agatha is as imposing as the vast landscape her rustic adobe home overlooks. Loosely inspired by the life of Agnes Martin, I Am Agatha introduces us to this irascible, indelible character who learns--over a stretch of strange, singular days--new ways to fathom life, death, and her own heart.

Review Quotes

"Surprising and spellbinding, I Am Agatha is a beautiful love story and meditation on grief, memory, art, and the deepest secrets we hold to keep living. Agatha is a narrator for the ages, telling us her story in a powerful voice--lush, sharp, blunt, and lyrical, all at once. And that extraordinary ending! Once I finished, I had to turn back to the beginning to reread and rethink through the whole story again." --Angie Kim, New York Times bestselling author of Happiness Falls

"Wry, tender, and deeply original, I Am Agatha is the story of a woman who builds her own house and her own salvation--a fierce meditation on love, art, and freedom for readers of Claire Keegan and Elizabeth Strout." --Christina Baker Kline, New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train

"Gloriously uncompromising or simply ornery and enigmatic? Nancy Foley's extraordinary Agatha is both--and, she discovers, something else altogether. This fierce and tender novel brilliantly captures how unexpected devotion can crack open even the most stubbornly guarded heart." --Antoine Wilson, nationally bestselling author of Mouth to Mouth

"To write in the style of a painter is no small feat. When that artist is Agnes Martin, it is something of a miracle. Nancy Foley's exacting and rhythmic prose delivers a marvel of precision and unexpected joy. I Am Agatha masterfully demonstrates the quiet power of lines--drawn, written, and crossed." --Christine Coulson, nationally bestselling author of Metropolitan Stories and One Woman Show

"This tale of an artist in New Mexico is itself a wise and gorgeous work of art. Foley makes us see old age afresh, as a time of passion, risk, and sharp, exposing light." --Clare Pollard, Tadeusz Bradecki Prize-winning author of The Modern Fairies

"Through spare and riveting prose, Nancy Foley has created a love story that asks: Does how well we know each other correlate to how deeply we love? I adored the community of mesmerizing characters in this novel who change the course of narrator Agatha Smithson's life despite her attempts to remain unmoved. Inspired by the famous painter Agnes Martin's years in New Mexico and rumors of destroyed love letters, this is a beautifully structured, multifaceted novel with secrets that stunned me, one after another, well after I thought they'd all been unearthed. I'll be recommending this book to everyone." --Jimin Han, author of The Apology

"In its wise exploration of love's insistent challenge to any sense of certainty age may deliver, I Am Agatha is at once a romance, a mystery, and a marvel. In witty, lyric prose, Nancy Foley maps Agatha's wry voice onto the unsparing beauty of rural New Mexico. Each new chapter with these unforgettable characters is a surprise and a delight--Foley's writing is as striking and evocative as the art on which the novel is based." --Claire Boyles, Whiting Award-winning author of Site Fidelity

"I Am Agatha stands alone. Agatha, a renowned painter with a sharp eye, is a prickly older woman in a small New Mexico town who bends everything and everyone around her to rich, surprising, and dark extremes. Her story is one of a gloves-off becoming, even in the latter end of life--one that honors difficult women and art monsters, queer people and elders--in a single, unforgettable, and unexpected new voice. I laughed, I gasped, I felt punched in the gut. Foley has gifted us all her careful attention and remarkable talent to show us what comes after love, in a courageous and true exploration of the heart. She is a brilliant and powerful writer, and I Am Agatha is extraordinary." --Eliana Ramage, author of Reese's Book Club Pick To the Moon and Back

About the Author

Nancy Foley grew up in New Mexico. She has been a writer in residence at Hedgebrook, and divides her time between New Mexico and Oregon. I Am Agatha is her first novel.