Synopses & Reviews
Asta in the Wings is the moving and often darkly funny story of Asta Hewitt, a resourceful seven-year-old and intrepid narrator growing up in an isolated house in Bond Brook, Maine. Shut off from the outside world and restricted to the company of a delusional mother and a bookish older brother, Asta is content to be part of a "society of three" constructing dramatic and fanciful worlds of their own. When circumstances push her into a strange outside world — with all of its discontents — Asta must find a way to assimilate while remaining true to herself and her fractured family. Jan Elizabeth Watson's debut novel puts her among the most promising new writers in the realm of imaginative literary fiction.
Review
"Like Alice after tumbling down the rabbit hole, Asta takes us on a journey through a confounding world filled with remarkable characters. A compassionate tale mixed with hope and sorrow, Asta In the Wings evokes both the tenderness and the danger of one child's struggle to find a place for herself in a world she is only beginning to understand. It's a gem of a book." Aryn Kyle, author of The God of Animals
Review
"In Asta in The Wings Jan Elizabeth Watson has created one of the most appealing fictional heroines I've encountered in a long time. Asta is brave, resourceful, intelligent, and loyal. She also happens to be seven years old, which means she's at the mercy of the unreliable adults who rule her world. The result is a vivid and suspenseful narrative where, over and over again, Asta shows us the world from her own very particular angle. A highly original debut." Margot Livesey, author of The House on Fortune Street
Review
"Jan Elizabeth Watson's debut, Asta in the Wings, follows two mavens of make-believe — seven-year-old Asta and her nine-year-old brother, Orion — as they reckon with the brutal realities of the adult world in the wilds of rural Maine." BookForum
Review
"The mysteries and ambiguities that Watson creates, raising questions and not trying to answer them, is what powers the novel." Nina MacLaughlin, The Portland Phoenix
Review
"'I feared a day when mother might forget to lock us in properly,' says seven-year-old Asta, narrator of Jan Elizabeth Watson's compact and captivating novel Asta in the Wings. It's the morning of "the last day, the day before everything changed," and her mother, Loretta, has just left for work, locking her children Asta and nine-year-old Orion into the house to protect them 'from the inscrutable outside world.'" Sheila Ashdown, Powells.com (read the entire Powells.com review)
Synopsis
A poignant and often darkly funny story narrated by seven-year-old Asta Hewitt. In their isolated house in rural Maine, Asta, her bookish older brother, and their delusional mother construct fanciful, theatrical worlds of their own.
About the Author
Jan Elizabeth Watson was born in Washington, D.C. and spent nearly a decade in New York City, where she received her MFA from Columbia University. She has worked extensively as an editor, copywriter, and adjunct professor of creative writing. She lives in Maine and has one child, a daughter. This is her first novel.