Other Evolutions

“To read Other Evolutions is to disappear through a hole in the fence into a world hidden within Ottawa’s neighborhood of The Glebe. With Alma Alt, Garcia has created an unforgettable main character with an honest and charming voice who walks the reader through the lead-up and devastating — also ultimately surprising — fallout of a tragic car accident. I was transported to Ottawa, Montreal, and Mexico, but mostly into the fascinating inner lives of the Alt family members. Other Evolutions is a piercing and haunting debut novel that I find myself still thinking about.” — Teri Vlassopoulos, author of Living Expense“On the surface, Other Evolutions is a beautiful portrait of a close-knit family, but it is also a story of alternate realities, nonlinear time, and portals to the unknown. In this world, memory is elastic, love and grief are powerful inventors, and anything is possible. Inventive and uncanny, Rebecca Hirsch Garcia’s debut novel will throw you for a loop.” — Neil Smith, author of Jones“A phantom ache made real. Garcia vividly chronicles the fraught love within a splintered family, their isolated world rippling with a hint of the uncanny beneath her polished prose.” — Andrew F. Sullivan, author of The Marigold“In this debut novel, Hirsch-Garcia’s prose is unflinching and, in some places, difficult to read as she takes on heavy themes such as growing up in a mixed-race, interfaith household, racism, and generational trauma …[The] reader is left with a tragic, yet profound sense of loss and its effects, and how much work it takes to heal.” — Booklist“Existing at a rich multicultural crossroads, Other Evolutions is an enchanting, triumphant novel about grief, love, and forgiveness.” — Foreword Reviews“The prose is lovely, and Garcia has a knack for capturing the surreality of loss.” — Publishers Weekly“Smart. Strange. Sterling. Other Evolutions is a reflection of the complexity of every life – constructed from disparate experiences and charged emotions, shaped in the end by unexpected turns.” — Quill & Quire, starred review“Other Evolutions mutates and contorts in unexpected ways. Even in the denouement, the genre shifts, a life-altering crisis emerges. Despite the complexity of the plot, the culmination of Alma’s journey is a simple love letter to Ottawa.” — Literary Review of Canada“A poignant illustration of familial connection and the spiralling, non-linear hold of grief’s hand.” — The Seaboard Review“Perhaps the most profound transformation is what takes place from the act reading Hirsch Garcia’s work. After reading Other Evolutions, you will never see the world in quite the same way, and you will never be quite the same.” — Fantastic Writer blog

Rebecca Hirsch Garcia lives in Ottawa, ON. An O. Henry Award–winning author, she has been published in The Threepenny Review, PRISM international, The Dark, and elsewhere. Her debut collection, The Girl Who Cried Diamonds & Other Stories (2023), was the runner-up for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award and shortlisted for an Ottawa Book Award. Other Evolutions is her debut novel.

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