Day of the Dead

"Learning about Penelope Fitzgerald’s life changed mine." An excerpt of 'Fonseca: A Novel,' with an introduction from the author.

Penelope Fitzgerald

Below, after an introduction from the author, is an excerpt of Jessica Francis Kane’s new novel, Fonseca, based on late author Penelope Fitzgerald’s travels to Mexico in the early 1950s. In The New York Times, reviewer Alida Becker included the book in a round-up of “Sublime Historical Fiction,” and described it as “very entertaining.”

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In 1999 I had a chance to move to London and write full-time. This came about because my husband was offered a job that would support us both, and I was able to leave my job in publishing. We moved in January, we had both just turned 28, and while I was initially excited about the limitless possibility this new adventure seemed to offer, the reality was overwhelming. It was dark and gray and rainy. I was lonely and homesick and full of doubt. I’d been writing short stories for years, but my only success at that point was winning a local fiction contest run by the C’Ville Weekly in Charlottesville, VA, where my husband and I had lived a few years earlier. I was diligently submitting stories, always having the next SASE (“self-addressed stamped envelope,” for those born after everything moved online) at the ready, but had not managed to place anything yet. I was giving myself six months in London, and if nothing happened, I was going to give up and get a job at a pub.

My husband, hoping to cheer me up, stopped in a bookshop on his way home from work one day and bought me a book. He chose a novel he thought I might like because it was set along the Thames near where we were living. The novel was Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald. I loved it, read all her other novels (there are nine total) in short order, and learned everything I could about her. When I found out that she had not published her first novel until 1977, when she was 60 years old, I was astonished. She was living in Hampstead at the time, and I dreamed of meeting her. A few times I took the Tube up to Hampstead Heath and haunted the streets, but it was not meant to be. She died the following year, in 2000, at the age of 83.

When I found out that Penelope Fitzgerald had not published her first novel until 1977, when she was 60 years old, I was astonished…She waited a long time to start writing novels, but then went on to be nominated for the Booker Prize three times, winning it once.

Reading Offshore and learning about Fitzgerald’s life changed mine. She waited a long time to start writing novels, but then went on to be nominated for the Booker Prize three times, winning it once. Suddenly it seemed ridiculous that I’d been saying I wanted to publish a novel before I was 30 (to my chagrin, the words were even in print, in the little interview that accompanied the publication of my story in the C’Ville Weekly). Fitzgerald’s life and example expanded my sense of time and possibility and I’m glad to say that I calmed down and kept at it, ultimately publishing a collection of short stories when I was 32 and my first novel just after I turned thirty-nine.

Now I am 54 and more than a little amazed to be publishing a novel about Penelope Fitzgerald. Fonseca is based on a journey she made to northern Mexico in 1952 with her son, then age 6, just before the family descended into poverty. I hope you are intrigued to read the rest, and then might seek out Penelope Fitzgerald’s books, if you haven’t read them. I recommend starting with Offshore, The Bookshop, or The Beginning of Spring.

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Chapter 1: Day of the Dead

In 1952 November 2 fell on a Sunday, and that afternoon a mother and son stood in front of the Delaney house in Fonseca, Mexico, poised to knock. They had traveled a long way, were quite stunned, mainly from the last leg of their journey through the American South, and now it was late afternoon the day after the day they were supposed to have arrived. The season was warm, and in the square behind them people were wearing calaveras and the air smelled of smoke and marigolds. In the distance and also quite nearby they heard the pop and spray of fireworks. A band was playing in the square, the music brassy and bright, punctuated by shouts. It was all very disconcerting and even though he didn’t know who or what was behind the door, the boy wanted to go inside. In all his six years, he had never entered a house that did not have someone making or about to make tea. But his mother would not knock.

“This isn’t a holiday,” Valpy said, turning to sit down on the front step. A young woman passed chewing a large sugar calavera with the name Pedro across the forehead. She was sobbing and laughing at the same time.

The boy’s mother sat down next to him. “How can you tell?”

“I’ve never had new clothes for a holiday before.”

“That’s not true,” Penelope said. “What about your bathing costume last summer?”

He didn’t say anything. They both knew bathing costumes didn’t count.

“And this is a very strange house.” The gray stone with wood shutters in the French style was at odds with all the buildings around it, every one stucco in the colors of sunset. The house stood right up against the pavement, three gabled sections around a shallow front courtyard. Five steps led up from the front wall to what looked like the door of a castle keep, old oak with iron bolts and bars. Above and to the left was a heavy, rounded balcony that reminded Penelope of a pulpit. There were several tall chimneys, two dormers, and a number of mullioned windows in various sizes, all shuttered. Old, twisted pecan trees on the street further darkened the front.

“Yes, but there’s nothing to be afraid of,” his mother said.

This was an error. Valpy had not said he was afraid, and now Penelope saw that he was looking at the trees and the heavy little balcony and wondering if he should be. “We were invited,” she reminded him quickly.

“But why were we invited?”

“The Delaneys are old friends.”

“But why do they want to see us?”

Later, when the house in Southwold was emptied, and even later, when the Grace went down, Penelope would remember this moment on the step of the house in Fonseca. Everyone has a point to which the mind reverts naturally when it is left on its own. This was hers.

“It’s hard to explain,” she said.

This was not untrue. The Delaneys, two wealthy old women, had written to Penelope more than half a year ago to say they were alone in the world, all their relations in Ireland were gone, and because of some distant friendship between their families, they hoped to meet Valpy. Indeed, if Penelope had understood their letters correctly, they suggested they might leave him all their money. This possibility was tantalizing for a number of very pressing reasons. She stood and knocked quickly, pecan shells cracking under foot.

Penelope Fitzgerald at 24 in 1940. Dooley Archive

“Dios mío, two of you!” the housekeeper exclaimed, pulling open the heavy door. “Have you just come from the bus?” She was about fifty, with wide, bare arms under a red apron. Her dark hair was pulled into a middle part, the length of it braided and wound on top of her head, a yellow marigold tucked behind one ear, heavy cheeks flushed under blue eyes. Penelope, who was not particularly tall, towered over her.

Valpy bravely cleared his throat. “Yes, but first we were on the Queen Mary, then the bus. It was a long and terrible ride. Actually, first we were on a train but that wasn’t part of the adventure because it was still in England.”

“That sounds right. Very few adventures begin and end in England. Where was the boat’s port of call?”

“New York,” Valpy answered.

“Good. One of you can take the bus back there.” She took Valpy’s hand, suggesting Penelope would be the one returning.

Penelope countered with a hand to Valpy’s shoulder. “But I notified Doña Elena that we were both coming.”

“I don’t remember that letter.”

“Yet you know it was a letter.”

“How else would you have have told her?”

“I might have sent a telegram. Or phoned.”

The housekeeper narrowed her eyes. “Too expensive.” She adjusted the marigold behind her ear. “We expected you yesterday.”

“I’m sorry. We were delayed in San Antonio.”

“That was the terrible part,” Valpy said.

The housekeeper nodded as if she understood, but how could she have known what happened?

The three stood on the doorstep, seemingly at an impasse. Finally Penelope said, “This is ridiculous! He’s only six years old. He never could have made this journey alone.”

“Why?” the housekeeper said, scrutinizing Valpy. “Is there something wrong with him?”

Valpy shook his head.

“Of course not,” Penelope said. “But it would be a very long journey for so young a child.”

“How far is it?”

Valpy knew the exact mileage from the front door of their house, Chestnut Lodge, Hampstead, London to the doorstep where they were standing in Zona Centro, Fonseca, Mexico.

“That is far,” the housekeeper said. “He should be with his mother.”

Penelope was relieved. “Now we agree. I am his mother.”

The housekeeper sighed. She stepped backward, pulling the door with her. “I am Chela. Welcome to Mirando.”

Penelope didn’t move. “I thought this was the Delaney house?”

“Yes, yes, come in.”

It was an inauspicious, topsy-turvy start and Penelope never forgot it.

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Excerpted from FONSECA, published by Penguin Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2025 by Jessica Francis Kane.

Jessica Francis Kane is the author of the national bestseller Rules for Visiting, This Close, The Report, and Bending Heaven. This Close was longlisted for The Story Prize, The Report was a finalist for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and Rules for Visiting was longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. Her stories and essays have appeared in many publications, including Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times, Slate, Virginia Quarterly Review, McSweeney’s, ZYZZYVA, and Granta. She lives in New York City and Connecticut.