Fonseca: A Novel [Hardback]

In 1952, pregnant Penelope Fitzgerald journeys to a remote Mexican town with her young son to pursue an inheritance, only to find rival claimants, a chaotic household full of artists and opportunists and a handsome stranger who could change everything.

“Kane’s remarkable excavation of this interlude, including real letters from Valpy, drips with juicy conflict and detail.” —Los Angeles Times

“A fable with heart and a searching investigation into what makes a marriage endure." —Boston Globe

"A marvel of sharp concision." —Wall Street Journal

“A daring book…fresh and beautiful.” —Chicago Tribune

A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice • Named a Must-Read Book for Summer by the LA Times, a Most-Anticipated Book of 2025 by Lit Hub and Publishers Weekly, and a best book of August by Town and Country, Foreign Policy, and BookPage • 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.