Eva's Man

Eva Medina Canada sits in her psychiatric ward, silent. She has murdered her lover and they want to know why. Her memories weave back and forth over encounters with the men in her life - the schoolboy who played doctors and nurses with a dirty popsicle stick; her mother's boyfriend; her cousin; her husband; a stranger on the bus. She's been propositioned and abused for as long as she can remember.

'CORREGIDORA was a small, fiercely concentrated story, harsh and perfectly told . . . Original, superbly imagined, nothing about the book was simple or easily digested. Out of the worn themes of miscegenation and diminishment, Gayl Jones excavated the disturbingly buried damage of racism. EVA'S MAN is a deepened exploration of the woman's inner life; of the pressures, the cruelties, the imposed expectations'

Darryl Pinckney, The New Republic

'Gayl Jones is one furious, lacerating writer. You don't read her easily, and you can't forget her at all . . . Hyper-real and traumatic as this novel is, it's one that's been waiting to be written since Samuel Richardson gave us the male point of view of Clarissa, that other fallen woman whose only acceptable alternative to ravishment was death. Eva's silence, and her status here as legally insane, are eloquent testimony to the condition of being a woman in this man's world' Kirkus

“An American writer with a powerful sense of vital inheritance, of history in the blood”

Corregidora was a small, fiercely concentrated story, harsh and perfectly told . . . Original, superbly imagined, nothing about the book was simple or easily digested. Out of the worn themes of miscegenation and diminishment, Gayl Jones excavated the disturbingly buried damage of racism. Eva's Man is a deepened exploration of the woman's inner life; of the pressures, the cruelties, the imposed expectations - The New Republic

Gayl Jones's work remains essential and vital; I will be rereading her catalog for the rest of my life - Nylon

Gayl Jones is one furious, lacerating writer. You don't read her easily, and you can't forget her at all . . . Hyper-real and traumatic as this novel is, it's one that's been waiting to be written since Samuel Richardson gave us the male point of view of Clarissa, that other fallen woman whose only acceptable alternative to ravishment was death. Eva's silence, and her status here as legally insane, are eloquent testimony to the condition of being a woman in this man's world - Kirkus

Gayl Jones ... accomplishes the almost impossible: a second novel that's every bit as intense, brutally honest and haunting as her first - Mademoiselle

Jones's writing powerfully blends narrative and lyricism. Her people speak a spare, lean, Southern black language ... Her imagination seems to thrive on outstripping one's expectations - Newsweek

Gayl Jones was born in Kentucky in 1949. She attended Connecticut College and Brown University and has taught at Wellesley and the University of Michigan. Her books include Corregidora (1975), Eva's Man (1976), The Healing (1998), which was a National Book Award finalist, Palmares (2021), which was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction and longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, and The Birdcatcher (2022), which was also a National Book Award Finalist.

Eva Medina Canada sits in her psychiatric ward, silent. She has murdered her lover and they want to know why. Her memories weave back and forth over encounters with the men in her life - the schoolboy who played doctors and nurses with a dirty popsicle stick; her mother's boyfriend; her cousin; her husband; a stranger on the bus. She's been propositioned and abused for as long as she can remember. ' CORREGIDORA was a small, fiercely concentrated story, harsh and perfectly told . . . Original, superbly imagined, nothing about the book was simple or easily digested. Out of the worn themes of miscegenation and diminishment, Gayl Jones excavated the disturbingly buried damage of racism. EVA'S MAN is a deepened exploration of the woman's inner life; of the pressures, the cruelties, the imposed expectations'Darryl Pinckney, The New Republic 'Gayl Jones is one furious, lacerating writer. You don't read her easily, and you can't forget her at all . . . Hyper-real and traumatic as this novel is, it's one that's been waiting to be written since Samuel Richardson gave us the male point of view of Clarissa , that other fallen woman whose only acceptable alternative to ravishment was death. Eva's silence, and her status here as legally insane, are eloquent testimony to the condition of being a woman in this man's world' Kirkus

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