Asta in the Wings is the poignant and darkly funny story of Asta Hewitt, a resourceful seven-year-old growing up in rural Maine. Isolated from the outside world by their delusional mother, Asta and her bookish older brother, Orion, are content construction their own fanciful, make-believe world. When circumstances pus them into the strange outside world with all of its discontents — Asta must find a way to assimilate while remaining true to herself and her fractured family.
“With this, her excellent debut novel, Watson makes quick work of a setup that could prove challenging for even seasoned authors… Asta’s narration is full of the wonderment and matter-of-factness of youth, and her eye-opening trip into reality is flawlessly executed by Watson.”
–Publishers Weekly, starred review.
“Like Alice after tumbling down the rabbit hole, Asta takes us on a journey through a confounding world filled with remarkable characters. A compassionate tale mixed with hope and sorrow, Asta in the Wings evokes both the tenderness and the danger of one child’s struggle to find a place for herself in a world she is only beginning to understand. It’s a gem of a book.”
-Aryn Kyle, author of The God of Animals
“in Asta in the Wings Jan Elizabeth Watson has created one of the most appealing fictional heroines I’ve encounterd in a long time. Asta is brave, resourceful, intelligent, and loyal. She also happens to be seven years old, which means she’s at the mercy of the unrelliable adults who rule her world. The result is a vivid and suspensufl narrative where, over and over again, Asta shows us the world from her own very particular angle. A highly original debut.”
-Margot Liversey, author of The House on Fortune Street.
Published by Tin House books
2009