Charlotte Cane: A Novel

“I’m already hungry for Susan Fox’s next book.” —Richard Russo

A writer in her sixties enjoying an unexpected career resurgence is threatened by anonymous allegations of a long-ago scandal in this searing and provocative debut novel in the vein of Rebecca Makkai and Julia May Jonas, that explores complicity, moral ambiguity, and the shifting cultural expectations that challenge the stories we tell ourselves.

Charlotte Cane is the type of character rarely given center stage. Now in her sixties, she is revered yet relegated to a shelf of canonical aging women writers. Throughout her career she’s done what she had to do to succeed in the male-dominated literary world.

After years of increasing irrelevance, Charlotte is shocked to learn that her latest book has landed her a coveted spot on a prestigious prize’s longlist. It seems that Charlotte might finally have her long-awaited chance in the sun, until she is confronted by Ana, a former student she barely remembers from twenty-five years ago.

Ana is not a fan. Over an increasingly uncomfortable drink at a hotel bar, she hints at a dangerous shared history with Charlotte. As the older woman escapes to her room, Ana utters a name that triggers an avalanche of memories. A few days later, someone with the handle “@ana93” begins posting a serialized “short story” that mirrors a painful chapter from Charlotte’s past: an affair that spiraled into tragedy, and the damage inflicted on a writer’s young family.

As Charlotte grows desperate to stop Ana from exposing her secrets—secrets that could not only derail her career, but also her marriage and the mental stability of her only son—she is forced to reckon with the role she’s played in other people’s stories.

Suspenseful and thought-provoking, Susan Fox’s gripping, expertly wrought 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?