Author Event: Evan Brooke

We're delighted to welcome Evan Brooke, author of Madeline McKnight Signs Off, to The Bookshop on Main for a special evening of books and conversation with Lee Kelly, author of The Midnight Show.

Madeline McKnight Signs Off
“An extraordinary exploration of friendship that spans the broadest universal themes of love and loyalty to the most intricate, intimate and memorable details of a human life.” —Jill McCorkle, New York Times bestselling author

It’s never too late to make amends in this hilarious and tender debut novel about intergenerational friendship, women’s ambition, and coming of age no matter what age you are.

Madeline McKnight is writing her final annual report. A former Wall Street power player, she uses a pie chart to rank her most hated rivals, a line graph to follow the trajectory of her net worth and reputation, and even a formula to predict when the metastasized cancer will kill her. But there’s no equation to solve for whether Bri Davis, Madeline’s ex-best friend’s daughter, will agree to take care of her at the end of her life.

Bri is a nursing student fresh off a breakup, ambivalent about her future, and drowning in debt. She accepts Madeline’s strange proposal, mostly for the obscene payday, only to find herself face-to-face with a force of nature rather than an ailing patient. Madeline McKnight has never gone away quietly, and soon she ropes Bri into teaming up with her to handle her unusual bucket list.

An unconventional relationship between women of two generations becomes something transcendent in this vulnerable, heartbreaking, and life-affirming debut novel that will stay with you “long after you turn the poignant last page” (Cat Shook, author of Humor Me).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Evan Brooke earned her MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Threepenny Review, The Baltimore Review, Cutleaf Journal, Passages North, and elsewhere. She lives with her husband, three kids, and two dogs outside of Philadelphia.