Fonseca - by Jessica Francis Kane (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Named a Must-Read Book for Summer by the LA Times and a Most-Anticipated Book of 2025 by Lit Hub - Library Journal Title to Watch

The story acclaimed English author Penelope Fitzgerald never wrote, of her real-life journey to Mexico with her son in search of a much-needed inheritance, by Jessica Francis Kane, bestselling author of Rules for Visiting

Winter 1952. Penelope Fitzgerald's husband is a struggling alcoholic, their literary journal is on the brink, and she is pregnant with their third child. When she receives a letter from two elderly sisters named Delaney, distant relations with a silver mine, who dangle the possibility of an inheritance, she recognizes it as a creative and practical lifeline.

Jessica Francis Kane's brilliantly imagined Fonseca fictionalizes Penelope's real and momentous trip to northern Mexico in pursuit of this legacy. She leaves her two-year-old, Tina, with relatives and sails for New York with her six-year-old, Valpy, in tow. From there, mother and son take a bus all the way to . . . Fonseca.

But when they arrive, nothing goes to plan. There are others vying for the Delaney money, and for three months, from Day of the Dead to Candlemas, Penelope must navigate a quixotic household and guide her impressionable son. More and more people frequent the house: an ambitious American couple, various local entrepreneurs and artists (including Edward Hopper and his wife, Jo), and finally a handsome stranger who claims he is a Delaney.

With heart, humor, and a deep understanding of her subject that has characterized the range of her work her whole career, Kane (whose work "could have been written by Jane Austen's great great-great-granddaughter" --Oprah Daily) has written much more than an homage: Fonseca is an enthralling world of its own as well as a stunning fictionalization of a season in Fitzgerald's life.

Review Quotes

"A masterful novel... Adding to the rich tension between fact and fiction are undated letters from the real Valpy and Fitzgerald's older daughter, Tina, to an unidentified recipient concerning the 1952 trip. It amounts to a luminous exploration of a woman's desperation and resilience." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Kane's third novel is based on the true story of a trip taken in 1952 by Penelope Fitzgerald . . . The trip was futile in the short run--in a London Review of Books essay, Fitzgerald called Saltillo 'Fonseca, ' Latin for 'dry well'--but, in Kane's hands, profoundly influential. The novel also includes actual letters from Fitzgerald's children, bolstering the sense that their mother's trip to Mexico was thick with mysteries. Kane's novel elegantly fills in the gaps. A finely turned novel that evokes its subject's gift for slyly biting domestic tales." --Kirkus (starred review)

"Fonseca is a beautifully written novel about a woman searching for her own story during a precarious moment in her life. Read this book for the mystery, for the joy of encountering the complicated marriage of the artists Jo and Edward Hopper, for the love stories of the main character Penelope: with a handsome stranger, her charming, alcoholic husband, her children, and with herself. This is the novel Penelope Fitzgerald was unable, or unwilling, to write during her own lifetime, and it chimes with quiet, perfect notes. I loved it."-- Ann Napolitano, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful

"Miraculously, wrenching and charming, imaginative and true, Jessica Francis Kane's Fonseca brings the indomitable Penelope Fitzgerald, and this entrancing world of Fonseca, to life. We watch riveted as Fitzgerald grasps at and grabs for the freedom, the art, that so many of us yearn toward, continue doggedly to search for, even as circumstance, family, the dredges and seductions of life continue to get in our way." --Lynn Steger Strong, author of Want

"Jessica Francis Kane has written a vivid and moving novel set in a stunning Mexican landscape. It is inspired by a mysterious journey hidden until now. To tell you more would betray the delicious experience. Highly recommended." --Luis Alberto Urrea, author of Good Night, Irene

"Jessica Francis Kane has done something marvelous--bringing us Penelope Fitzgerald as a character in a novel she meant to write but never wrote--and maybe never could write, for how it was about herself in some extraordinary straits. Hauntingly witty, funny, pitch-perfect, Penelope Fitzgerald comes alive again in Fonseca. I was riveted, start to finish." --Alexander Chee, bestselling author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel

"Near the end of Fonseca, a question is raised: 'Would you agree it was a treasure hunt that became a mystery that turned into a love story?' It is all of the above, and more--a sublime imaginative rendering of a lost episode in the life of a famous writer who is unmoored by desperation yet determined to move forward, somehow, even in unfamiliar surroundings. Jessica Francis Kane has written a rich, compelling portrait of human need, desire, and growth. When I finished the last page, I felt the profound satisfaction of having discovered a truly great book." --Alice Elliott Dark, author of Fellowship Point and In the Gloaming

"Jessica Francis Kane's brilliant and atmospheric novel imagines renowned writer Penelope Fitzgerald's bold journey to Northern Mexico in search of self-reliance--a quest as internal as it is external. In this imaginative, frank, and quietly wrenching book, Kane walks us to a place where we can feel Fitzgerald reach for the freedom which so many women want and deserve--and may never find. Fonseca gets to the heart of what happens when we believe in our dreams, take risks, and are forever changed by the quest itself." --Megan Mayhew Bergman, author of How Strange a Season

About the Author

Jessica Francis Kane is the author of the national bestseller Rules for Visiting, This Close, The Report, and Bending Heaven. This Close was longlisted for The Story Prize, The Report was a finalist for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and Rules for Visiting was longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. Her stories and essays have appeared in many publications, including Harper's Magazine, The New York Times, Slate, Virginia Quarterly Review, McSweeney's, ZYZZYVA, and Granta. She lives in New York City and Connecticut.