Holloway

Opening in August 2021, this complex time-travel novel by Arnold (The Blood Years) plumbs an autistic teenager’s endeavors to reconstruct her identity following her zealous anti-vaxxer mother’s death from Covid. Art has always been a lifeline for 17-year-old Nora, who takes her mother Gillian’s remains to Paris to bury them on La Grande Jatte. Disappointed by the park’s current setting, Nora sets off to find the perfect spot. While camping solo through the Loire Valley, Nora relives memories of hers and Gillian’s years together and revisits her mother’s teachings for masking her autistic traits around others. Nora’s discovery of a holloway, an ancient sunken path that acts as a portal to 1946, transports her to an asylum at Saint-Alban, where Nora gains a new perspective on her and Gillian’s relationship. Arnold successfully renders Nora’s sensory and intellectual overload through the protagonist’s lyrical reflections on perception, the societal connections between post–Covid pandemic and post-WWII eras, and the making of art as essential and eternal. Posing thought-provoking questions about time, love, and relationships, it’s an ambitious and immersive portrait of one neurodivergent teen’s experience. Nora and Gillian are white. An author’s note concludes. Ages 14–up. Agent: Sara Crowe, Sara Crowe Literary. (May)