Imprisoned for the bizarre murder of her lover, Eva Medina Canada recalls a life tormented by sexual abuse and emotional violence. Eva’s Man is Gayl Jones’s second novel.
Imprisoned for the brutal and bizarre murder of her lover, Eva Medina Canada recalls a life tormented by sexual abuse and emotional violence. Eva reveals her own pain and traumas through fragmented, often anachronistic memories, but she rarely describes the violence she commits herself. Through repeated retellings of the same incidents, each time with slight variations, we come to understand that Eva’s memory and sense of self are disintegrating.
The tension between Eva’s status as a survivor and a perpetrator permeates the book. Eva’s Man portrays the challenge of communicating truthfully, or even satisfyingly, about what it feels like—what it means—to live through trauma. Tragic and profoundly thought-provoking, Eva’s Man is Gayl Jones’s second novel. It was originally acquired and edited by Toni Morrison.
“A literary giant, and one of my absolute favorite writers.”
—Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage
“Miss Jones . . . is an American writer with a powerful sense of vital inheritance, of history in the blood.”
—John Updike
“The Best American Novelist Whose Name You May Not Know.”
—Calvin Baker, The Atlantic
“The strange reflections across the story . . . unite into a mosaic of Some Larger Violence that we are left staring at, appalled and in awe.”
—Nanwali Serpell