Other Evolutions: A Novel

“A phantom ache made real. Garcia vividly chronicles the fraught love within a splintered family, their isolated world rippling with a hint of the uncanny beneath her polished prose.” —Andrew F. Sullivan, author of The Marigold With sharp human insight and unflinching prose, Other Evolutions is O. Henry Prize-winning author Rebecca Hirsch Garcia’s dark, speculative debut, perfect for readers of Iain Reid and Emily St. John Mandel. Alma Alt, the sheltered youngest daughter of an interfaith, interracial Jewish-Mexican couple, rarely ventures far from her home on a wealthy tree-lined street in Ottawa, where nothing ever happens. The one time she did, striking out to visit her older sister, Marnie, in Montreal, things ended in disaster as she found out that beautiful, blonde Marnie had been lying about their family’s background, trying to pass herself off as white. The fallout from that betrayal leads to a devastating accident, one that claims Alma’s arm and someone’s life. Alma is now stuck in a holding pattern, unable to move past her grief. But Alma's life is turned upside down by an encounter just steps from home with an impossible person: the boy she watched die. Other Evolutions is a literary debut with a dark twist that reveals the uncanny in the mundane, seeing us through the worst parts of our lives toward the weird and wonderful things right in our own backyard.

About the Author :
Rebecca Hirsch Garcia lives in Ottawa, ON. An O. Henry Award–winning author, she has been published in The Threepenny Review, PRISM international, The Dark, and elsewhere. Her debut collection, The Girl Who Cried Diamonds & Other Stories (2023), was the runner-up for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award and shortlisted for an Ottawa Book Award. Other Evolutions is her debut novel.

Review :
“To read Other Evolutions is to disappear through a hole in the fence into a world hidden within Ottawa’s neighborhood of The Glebe. With Alma Alt, Garcia has created an unforgettable main character with an honest and charming voice who walks the reader through the lead-up and devastating — also ultimately surprising — fallout of a tragic car accident. I was transported to Ottawa, Montreal, and Mexico, but mostly into the fascinating inner lives of the Alt family members. Other Evolutions is a piercing and haunting debut novel that I find myself still thinking about.” — Teri Vlassopoulos, author of Living Expense “On the surface, Other Evolutions is a beautiful portrait of a close-knit family, but it is also a story of alternate realities, nonlinear time, and portals to the unknown. In this world, memory is elastic, love and grief are powerful inventors, and anything is possible. Inventive and uncanny, Rebecca Hirsch Garcia’s debut novel will throw you for a loop.” — Neil Smith, author of Jones “A phantom ache made real. Garcia vividly chronicles the fraught love within a splintered family, their isolated world rippling with a hint of the uncanny beneath her polished prose.” — Andrew F. Sullivan, author of The Marigold “In this debut novel, Hirsch-Garcia’s prose is unflinching and, in some places, difficult to read as she takes on heavy themes such as growing up in a mixed-race, interfaith household, racism, and generational trauma#.#.#.# [The] reader is left with a tragic, yet profound sense of loss and its effects, and how much work it takes to heal.” — Booklist