On Sale March 17, 2026
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…read more
Praise forI am Agatha
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“Move over, Mr. Ripley. ‘I Am Agatha’ is a delightfully duplicitous debut… This is a strange, fresh story about artistic ambition and personal autonomy willingly abridged for love .” —Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air, NPR
“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.” —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." —Christina Baker Kline, New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train
”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.” —Eliana Ramage, author of Reese’s Book Club Pick To The Moon and Back
“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.” —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
”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.” —Booklist, starred
”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…. 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
“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
“In a novel inspired by the life of the artist Agnes Martin, Foley invents a fictional scenario while capturing Martin’s emotional essence. . . A rich portrayal emerges on multiple layers: the self-centered, prickly but gifted artist, the woman fighting the realities both of mental illness and aging, the derider of sentiment who desperately wants, and often makes, deep and lasting connections with others..” —Kirkus Reviews, starred
“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