Building the Unreal in Rebecca Hirsch Garcia’s Debut Novel Other Evolutions
Reviewed by Gina Catherine Grant
“Who would hold on to nothing for so long?” asks narrator Alma Alt in Other Evolutions, the debut novel by Rebecca Hirsch Garcia. Holding on to what has passed, to who has passed, with nothing less than a searing, self-destructive grip, is central to Alma’s story. Hirsch Garcia scrapes this idea clean by asking the reader to consider the physical, nonphysical and metaphysical aspects of loss within Alma’s life, with supporting elements of the uncanny scattered throughout the novel.
Other Evolutions is divided into four sections: “Vanishing”, “Absence”, “Loss” and “Homecoming”, which are further broken down into detailed memories and vignettes. Alma reflects on her early life, living in Ottawa’s Glebe neighbourhood in the early aughts. Her identity is complex, stretching between a Jewish-Mexican heritage while living in a predominantly white Canadian community. Her sense of self is initially established in contrast to her older sister, Marnie.
Their combined birth stories are just the beginning of the sisters’ fable: Their mother, Merced, a Mexican immigrant new to Canada but hardly naive, wishes her firstborn to have “a good life. A white life.” Blonde, green-eyed and white-passing Marnie is born, so pale her mother is mistaken as her nanny, as her stepmother. By the time of her second pregnancy, she is exhausted from the endless assumptions and microaggressions. She wishes for “a child to be hers and would look it.” Then comes Alma, black hair and brown skin, her mother’s daughter, and Marnie’s opposite.
“While the sisters’ differences extend far past appearance, their physical differences act as a precursor to the novel’s central event.”
While the sisters’ differences extend far past appearance, their physical differences act as a precursor to the novel’s central event. Fourteen-year-old Alma visits Marnie in Montreal and accompanies her older sister to a party– under the strict pretense of being a friend from back home, not a sister. Alma realizes Marnie has concocted a new life, one without Alma or their family background. She flees the party, and her humiliation and devastation steer her to Oliver Jentsch, former neighbour, childhood crush and fascination. Oliver comforts her, offers to drive her back home to Ottawa, and ultimately dies in the crash which ensues.
Alma’s life post-accident is at a standstill. Dealing with the loss of Oliver, as well as the loss of her right arm, Alma refuses to confront her past or her future and lives in an in-between, rewatching classic movies, specifically The Wizard of Oz. Herself not unlike Dorothy, trying to make sense of her new world, wondering how to get home when the very concept of home is obliterated.
Hirsch Garcia’s flowing prose and linguistic delicacy emphasize the cutting honesty of Alma’s narrative. She does not shy away from characters who are harsh, who are mean, who are flawed. The characters in Other Evolutions each go to great lengths to preserve what they’ve lost.
But how do you preserve that which is unreal? Marnie repents for her role in the accident by creating dozens of intricate prostheses–none of which will regrow Marnie’s limb, or their sisterhood. Oliver’s mother, Mrs. Jentsch, steadfast in the grief of losing her only son, becomes the novel’s own Wizard, operating behind (literal) smoke and mirrors to maintain her reality before the accident.
Like her name, Alma Alt and the cast of Other Evolutions search for the alternate: lives, families, realities. Hirsch Garcia’s novel is a poignant illustration of familial connection and the spiralling, non-linear hold of grief’s hand.
About the Author
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.
About the Reviewer
Gina Catherine Grant is a writer and former professional contemporary dancer. She lives in Menahquesk/Saint John, NB, where she works as a librarian assistant. Her writing has appeared in Billie: Visual - Culture - Atlantic, It’s Burning Off and Soliloquies Anthology.
Book Details
Publisher : ECW Press
Publication date : Oct. 7 2025
Language : English
Print length : 264 pages
ISBN-10 : 1770417265
ISBN-13 : 978-1770417267
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