CHARLOTTE CANE follows a writer in her 60s whose unexpected career resurgence is threatened by anonymous allegations of a long-ago affair with a student that spiraled into tragedy, exploring complicity, moral ambiguity, and the shifting cultural expectations that challenge the stories we tell ourselves. This gripping novel shatters the binary of “right” and “wrong,” questions the fallibility of memory, and explores the way guilt can warp over time. Ultimately, Charlotte Cane asks the questions we are desperate to avoid: what—or who—will we sacrifice to achieve success, and how far will we go to avoid being portrayed as the villain?

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“A terrific debut. Academic novels are usually good for a belly laugh or two, but they don’t usually twist your stomach into anxious knots like Charlotte Cane did mine. I just turned the last page and I’m already hungry for Susan Fox’s next book.” —Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls and the North Bath “Fool” novels

“Smart, perceptive, and as provocative as its self-made heroine, Susan Fox’s timely debut—the story of a middle-aged author with a possible triumph in her future and transgressions in her past—asks big questions about creativity and privilege, power and perspective and the damage done in the name of creation. I'll be thinking about this astonishing, assured debut for a long time.” —Jennifer Weiner, New York Times bestselling author of The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits

“In the heat of the #MeToo moment, the past comes calling for author Charlotte Cane, and a younger generation’s judgment of that past differs confoundingly from her own. She’s never viewed herself as a victim, nor as a perpetrator for that matter: is she wrong? A smart, suspenseful, morally complex debut from Susan Fox.” —Jonathan Dee, author of Sugar Street and The Privileges

“In this arresting debut, Fox writes her titular character with a brittle broken wine glass on skin—appalling and enthralling at the same time. She enfolds us in two women's experiences with detailed physicality and immediacy, creating an unswerving interior view on what has changed—and what hasn't—for ambitious women in our culture. An absolute must-read." —Julia Spencer-Fleming, New York Times bestselling author of At Midnight Comes the Cry

"Unsettling, astute, and riveting. Whose interpretation of the past do we trust when the rules seem to be shifting and everyone's memory is colored by their own reality? Charlotte Cane is nearing the height of her career when she stumbles into the ghosts of her past indiscretions. Is she a victim or a perpetrator, a hardworking writer being stalked or a selfish manipulator who is facing her comeuppance? This novel is too smart and nuanced to leave it as simple as that." —Eowyn Ivey, Pulitzer finalist and New York Times bestselling author of The Snow Child and Black Woods Blue Sky.

“Who is Charlotte Cane? Feminist icon or imposter, literary superstar or relic with a case of selective amnesia, survivor or abuser? The answers are rivetingly complicated. You simply must read Susan Fox's dazzling debut, because whoever she really is, Charlotte Cane is one of the most fascinating literary characters of our time.” —Elizabeth Gaffney, author of Metropolis and When the World Was Young