A Novel

In this philosophical fable of art and fate, Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood paints a world that floats above our own and contours the infinitesimal moments that shape who we love, over whom we obsess, and how we decide what to live for.

Constellations of Eve

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Eve is a reluctant mother; Eve is a famous phenomenon; Eve is a quiet country teacher. Liam is a successful artist; Liam is a scheming husband; Liam is a gentle partner. Pari is a leading scientific researcher; Pari is a recognized model; Pari is a picture of declining mental states.

Constellations of Eve weaves together three deviations of one love story. In each variation, the narrative changes slightly, with life-altering impacts. Against a backdrop of difficult people finding their place in a constantly shifting universe, the novel manipulates the variables leading to their fraught romantic entanglements, tearing through a host of lifetimes in search of the one in which all the brightest stars align.

In this philosophical fable of art and fate, Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood paints a world that floats above our own and contours the infinitesimal moments that shape who we love, over whom we obsess, and how we decide what to live for.

Each reality allows Eve another chance at finding her true destiny and personal and professional fulfillment—but can she get it right? Is there even such a thing as right? Constellations of Eve wrestles with the most intimate betrayals and the staggering personal costs of stifling artistic ambition, pursuing it to the exclusion of family, or letting it disperse in favor of an all-consuming love.

The novel:

Praise for Constellations of Eve

  • “In her ground-breaking new novel, Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood’s Constellations of Eve keeps readers in awe of what just had happened to them as they read this dark, torturous, and passionate modern love story that defies what may be expected of an Asian American woman writer. A real literary jewel, where hope for true and restful love is unexpectedly lost and found.”

    ―Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, author of This is All I Choose to Tell: History and Hybridity in Vietnamese American Literature

  • “Constellations of Eve is the faithful and meticulous rendering of a radical vision of life, love, art, lust, beauty, obsession, and death. The writing gives no quarter to what we might like to believe are ‘normal’ feelings and situations. Abbigail N. Rosewood brings back a bold and uncompromising report from the frontiers of the truth of human experience.”

    ―Matthew Sharpe, author of You Were Wrong, Nothing is Terrible, Jamestown, and The Sleeping Father

  • “Constellations of Eve, written in exquisite, pointillistic detail, is an impeccable title for Abbigail Rosewood’s brilliant new novel. With each discrete episode chronicling Eve’s life, Rosewood unflinchingly exposes the disturbing complexities, conundrums, and fears that accompany love, marriage, and motherhood. The honesty is sharp; the truth is piercing. Singularly, the crucial and definitive moments that define Eve’s life are like stars, each startling unto itself. Collectively aligned, they lay bare the unexpected, yet inevitable, story of a unique and complicated everywoman who is not as happy as she ought to be.”

    ―Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of Rabbits for Food and The Scenic Route

  • “Rosewood signals a new frontier of Vietnamese American narratives.”

    ―Eric Nguyen, author of Things We Lost To The Water

Press

  • “Rosewood’s prose tends toward the figurative and lyrical. Her characters regularly exhibit an idiosyncratic impulsiveness…they can surprise and sometimes terrify.”

    ―The New York Times

  • “The Buddhist truths underpinning her deliciously complex novel cannot be pulpited as though a sermon, they must be osmotically transferred as though intangible wisps of spiritual epiphanies. Combining structural eccentricity with linguistic impressionism, and perfectly modulated psychological realism has resulted in Rosewood giving us an almost faultless display of authorial virtuosity.”

    ―The Yorkshire Times

  • “Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood’s second novel Constellations of Eve leaves you winded, gasping for air, but simultaneously awakening your mind to metaphysical possibilities. It is a novel with little plot, but the striking and impactful one-liners keep the prose, nearing poetry, flowing steadily to the point you cannot put the novel down. It has it all: love, art, lust, beauty, obsession and death.”

    ―The Indiependent U.K

  • “Rosewood’s exquisite and experimental novel in stories offers a transfixing meditation on love, envy, and obsession. Each iteration builds upon the previous one, culminating in a brilliant harmony made all the more aching for its exploration of all that the characters cannot have at once. This is stunning."

    ―Publishers Weekly, STARRED Review

  • “In strikingly searing prose, Rosewood unfolds a compelling story of betrayal and obsession."

    ―Buzzfeed

  • “The story’s supernatural framing adds a haunting touch to the story….Bleak yet eloquent in showing that there is more than one way to attain peace, destruction, or both at once, Constellations of Eve is a turbulent novel about the infinite possibilities contained in a single life."

    ―Foreword Review

  • “Rosewood's haunting prose and the moments when the three alternate universes bump up against each other are delightful. A harrowingly beautiful exploration of unrequited love and the fallout of single-minded devotion. Rosewood stands out in her unromantic meditation on the grotesque in beauty."

    ―Kirkus Review

  • “Rosewood’s poetic and intelligent prose delivers a remarkable and an imaginative novel. The open-minded reader will be rewarded, because Rosewood’s introspection into human fantasies, despairs and desires, in a philosophical way, is unexpected for such a young author."

    ―Author Link

  • “Rosewood muses on loss and how the smallest of choices can change everything in this deeply thoughtful read about the destructive nature, and beauty, of love."

    ―Character Media

  • “Rosewood’s experimental literary triptych offers three different versions of one couple’s relationship...The novel explores the simultaneous pain and pleasure found in the lives we choose in relation to the ones we don’t."

    ―The Millions

  • “Rosewood’s latest novel is a nuanced and penetrating look at creation, love and obsession.”

    ―Ms. Magazine

Booksellers

“A remarkable forthcoming novel by Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood’s Constellations of Eve. Three lives play out in different versions, sliding doors-style, all brilliantly threaded together by themes of love, fate, devotion, art, and what lies beneath the surface. The writing is exceptional. I’m especially drawn in by descriptions of falling in love, complicated relationships, and the work of loving someone long-term."

―Julie Wernersbach, P & T Knitwear

About the Imprint:

“The persistent mission of the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network, now generously supported by Viet Thanh Nguyen’s MacArthur grant, is to celebrate and foster diasporic Vietnamese literary voices. It is to that end that we are proud to announce the inaugural title of this new publishing venture.”

More information on this Inaugural Title in the TTUP/DVAN Partnership