Helen of Nowhere

An electrifying novel about the delights and dangers of starting over.

In the middle of the countryside, a realtor is showing a disgraced professor around an idyllic house. She speaks not only about the home's many wonderful qualities but about its previous owner, the mystifying Helen, whose presence still seems to suffuse every fixture. Through hearing stories of Helen's chosen way of living, the man begins to see that his own story is not actually over—rather, he is being offered a chance to buy his way into the simple life, close to the land, that's always been out of reach to him. But as evening fades into black, he will learn that the asking price may be much higher, and stranger, than anticipated.

Philosophically and formally adventurous, at once intimate and cosmic in scope, Helen of Nowhere asks: What must we give up in exchange for true happiness?

Publication date: September 9, 2025

Format: Trade Paper

Dimensions: 5 x 7.5

Page count: 160 pages

ISBN: 9781566897358

Makenna Goodman is the author of two novels, Helen of Nowhere (Coffee House Press, 2025) and The Shame (Milkweed Editions, 2020), and has written for international publications including the New York Times, New York Review of Books, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Harvard Review, The White Review, BOMB, The Common, ASTRA Magazine, Mousse Magazine, and others. Also an editor, she is based in Vermont.

A Millions Most Anticipated Book of Summer 2025

A Literary Hub Novel You Need to Read This Fall

Bookshop.org Best of Summer 2025

“Lyrical but succinct, . . . playful without being pretentious.”

—Emily Hall, Necessary Fiction

“A vessel for the contradictions of the present unlike any recent novel I’ve read.”

—Idra Novey, Chicago Review of Books

“Frank and brutal in its unpeeling of the professor’s ego, [Helen of Nowhere] highlights how the fantastic can elevate the mundane.”

—Ian Mond, Locus

“Epic in the best way. . . . Goodman’s novel is a tribute to her influences, and a crackling joy to read.”

—Jessie Gaynor, Literary Hub

“A clever exercise in exploring the shifting nature of power.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Virtuosically written, with an insanity inside its sanity—or the other way around—that seems the proper use to make of reality in this moment.”

—Rachel Cusk, award winning author of Parade

“Goodman has found a unique way of blending political urgency and psychological insight with an almost hallucinatory spiritual dimension that manages to strike the reader as perfectly justified, deeply funny, and profoundly true.”

—Vincenzo Latronico, International Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Perfection

"Goodman has wrought an epic in miniature."

—Sarah Manguso, author of Liars

“Intrepid, reconfiguring, and full of the best hauntings.”

—Samantha Hunt, author of The Unwritten Book

"A furious energy runs through Helen of Nowhere, whose every sentence is a joy to read. A unique and brilliant work."

—Ayşegül Savaş, author of The Anthropologists

"Blending biting wit and gorgeous, lyrical prose, Helen of Nowhere is at once a modern satire summoning Dickens in A Christmas Carol, an exploration of the failures of second wave feminism, and a sneaky ode to Woolf and Thoreau."

—Alexandra Auder, author of Don't Call Me Home

"An extraordinary book, gripping, daring, and unusual. I wolfed it down."

—Celia Paul, author of Letters to Gwen John

“An intimate and immersive tour de force by a writer with a fearless style.”

—Preti Taneja, author of Aftermath

“Helen of Nowhere expands one's sense of how a novel can be written.”

—Sheila Heti, author of Pure Colour

“This is a novel for anybody who has had the thought recently that all contemporary fiction is the same.”

—Polly Barton, author of Porn: An Oral History