Maureen Corrigan

Agatha Smithson is that rare person who lacks the gene for self-doubt.

Brash and brutally dismissive of anyone who disagrees with her, Agatha is the main character and unreliable narrator of Nancy Foley's deviously plotted debut novel called I Am Agatha.

If you're one of those readers who prizes likability above all else in your fictional characters, you may be inclined to give I Am Agatha a pass.

But that would be a mistake.

This is a strange, fresh story about artistic ambition and personal autonomy willingly abridged for love.

And all too unusually, the love affair here is between two women in their 60s.

Agatha's character is inspired by the real-life minimalist painter Agnes Martin, known for her canvases covered in graphs and stripes.

Martin lived for years in New Mexico near Georgia O'Keeffe.

Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, Martin was a solitary person, although she had significant relationships with women.

Nancy Foley, who grew up in New Mexico, says that her novel was inspired by rumors of such a relationship between a friend of her grandmother's and Martin.

I Am Agatha takes place mostly in the 1970s, with flashbacks to Agatha's rough youth in Canada and allusions to a hard time in New York, including a stint at Bellevue.

New Mexico offers Agatha a new start and an austere landscape that jibes with her art and her own personality.

Here's Agatha, in her typical brusque, pared-down manner of speaking, describing the view from the adobe house she built herself, high upon a mesa.

My house looks west, out over a canyon, that although far from any ocean whatsoever, yet resembles one in scope and light.

This ocean canyon heaves waves of shale and basalt, quartz and silt.

Cloud shadows flit across its rock floor like ghost boats.

There is no other place on earth like Mesa Portales.

I have traveled to many places, so mine is not an uninformed opinion.

The truth is that there is a hierarchy.

Some places are objectively better, just as some people are objectively better than others.