An Impossibility of Crows: A Novel

by Kirsten Kaschock

200 pages, Paperback

Expected publication March 3, 2026

About the author

Award winning author Kirsten Kaschock is a poet and novelist who writes across genres. Her background in dance has impacted her work—she consistently addresses intersections between language and body. The author of seven poetry books, she has received fellowships from the Pew Foundation, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, Subcircle, and the Summer Literary Seminars. Coffee House Press published her debut speculative novel—Sleight. She has lived in Iowa, New York, Georgia, and Maryland—and currently resides in Northeast Pennsylvania with her partner. Her work has been called “gothic and intense,” “as fascinating as it is disturbing,” and “inventive and exhilarating.” As Cheryl Strayed once noted: “There isn’t anyone like any single one of us, but the way there is no one like Kirsten Kaschock is a different thing.”

Reviews

[K.Rafyra · Rating 5 out of 5]

• I received an ARC for this book from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review and I appreciate both your work and commitment to this project. The following opinion is my own and holds no major spoilers. •

• An Impossibility of Crows
• Kirsten Kaschock
• Rating: 5/5

“The crows assert that a single crow could destroy the heavens. This is certainly true, but it proves nothing against the heavens, because heaven means precisely: the impossibility of crows.”

I like to say there are cooks and chefs in writing.

Cooks, who are there to make something to fill our starved minds of the same comfortable tastes, the familiar ingredients, sometimes with a promise of “come, you already ate this, but this one tastes much better because I made it!” But then, afterwards, the writing was fun and good and just enough and not too long after I’ll forget about it

And then there are chefs, cooking books whose prose and themes and feelings are born in a person who can turn all those into ingredients for a gourmet literary experience. The kind of reading it’ll keep coming back to you even days or weeks or years after you wrote it, and you probably will look for the same taste again and won’t find it anywhere else. And that’s both devastating and amazing.

Kirsten, dear, you’re one hell of a chef.

In this book we know Agnes, a scientist whose marriage and sense of motherhood are slipping through her fingers. In a desperate attempt to find a solution for her problems, she moves with her family to her childhood home where she begins an experiment: to raise a crow big enough to be flown. However, in her obsession and ambition, she fails to realize her life keeps crumbling apart in front of her eyes while her crow keeps getting bigger and out of control. On top of that, she needs to deal with layers of generational trauma imprinted in the house she grew up in in a narrative that makes us question what we are actually made for.

I could convince you to read this book with just the paragraph above, but there is something much deeper in the prose of this author that you won’t find anywhere else and this is the one thing that made this book one of my favorite reads ever. There, in her prose, the sentences don’t just say things, they sing. You’ll find the author keeps words hidden on purpose, creating both discomfort and multiple meanings in the text. It’s there, then you read it again and it means something else, something deeper and darker every time you repeat it in your mind.

At some point I told my husband that I felt like the author was writing in another language and then translating it in her mind for us to read. And then I realized she really was, for some types of violence are just like that: something you only recognise sometimes when you look at it twice.

I have a feeling I’ll keep this book in my heart for my whole life. And now that I had a taste of the ingredients in this one and I’m addicted to it, what’s left for me it’s to wait for Kirsten Kaschock to cook something else while I pick up some junk food.

[Annelise · Rating 5 out of 5]

After her father's death, Agnes Krahn moved from her rough Philadephia neighborhood to her childhood home in Lancaster county. She begins to breed crows, a hobby over which she obsesses to the point of driving away her husband and daughter. Agnes knows that her crow experiments are not in vain, and that her last living crow, Solo, will be large enough to carry her daughter through the skies and give her the mobility that she's never had.

'An Impossibility of Crows' is not an easy read. Bleak and terse with and equally unapproachable main character, I almost gave up because I found Agnes so hard to like. This is by design; between her derision of her husband's interests, her poor parenting choices, and her clinical attitude towards Solo, it's hard to like her. Agnes knows that she's someone who is unskilled at giving and receiving love. However, through her journal entries and her discoveries of her mother's letters, readers will understand why she is the way she is.

Frustrating as she can be, Agnes isn't alone in her behavior. Her sister, Bethany, seems to have gone down a religious tradwife rabbit hole, with a gaggle of children named after abstract nouns and a fear of non-natural remedies, she thinks Agnes's relationship issues come from her bad relationship with God rather than any personality issues. Their parents are posthumous characters, but don't fare much better. Bruce and Mina, Agnes's husband and daughter, are quite adorable whenever Agnes remembers them, which serves to make her even more difficult to relate to. And sweet Solo! As someone who has always loved Frankenstein's monster and other horror novel freaks who only want to be loved, I felt so much affection towards this great dane-sized bird.

This isn't a fun or happy book, but it's a book that I couldn't put down and felt incredibly invested in. Art is supposed to make you feel something, and Kirsten Kaschock does exactly that--she gives us an awful situation through the eyes of a detached and frustrating person. It's a challenging read, but it was worth it to see how many emotions a book could wring out of me. In a way, finishing this book was cathartic--an emotional release like screaming while going down a steep hill of a roller coaster or having a nice cry. Sometimes you just want to imagine something terrible and awful, have that sensation take over your body, and find comfort in the fact that it isn't real.

[Dima · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books I really wanted to dislike when I started reading it. Told in the first person, it’s the story of Agnes, who struggles with guilt and self-destruction. She has plenty to feel guilty about—her child, her mother, her relationships, her sister, and herself—but she’s also angry, though it’s not clear at what.

She tries to assuage her guilt by using her background in chemistry and biology to breed a larger-than-life crow—smart, capable, and perhaps meant to be the one thing she can truly be proud of. As her project advances and her life unravels, she becomes increasingly obsessed with and haunted by her creation, Solo, while failing to confront the real issues consuming her. Meanwhile, she delves into her past through her mother’s long-lost diaries, discovering unsettling truths as her own mental and physical health deteriorate.

The book blends coming-of-age, psychological thriller, horror, and psychological disintegration. Its echoes of Frankenstein are hard to miss, with Solo as the monster. It’s disturbing, haunting, and thrilling—not overly explicit in its messages, yet deeply affecting. It draws us into the unraveling mind of a woman who seems normal to others but is anything but. The story lingers, and I suspect I’ll appreciate it even more with time.

I recommend it to anyone drawn to psychological mind-benders with a hint of magical realism. If you’re looking for a tight, straightforward narrative with a clear beginning, middle, and end—this isn’t it.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Rhi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to the University of Massachusetts Press and NetGalley for the DRC of this book that enabled me to write this review.

An Impossibility of Crows is a strange book. Strange, beautiful, irritating in parts, and deeply, deeply intriguing. Told in scraps of the journals of Agnes Krahn, our point of view character, her late mother's diary and delusional ramblings, poetry, and dreamlike flashbacks - a narrative of cycles and rot begins to weave itself together, as Agnes herself continues to unravel. I almost bounced off this book because of Agnes, which sounds at first like criticism, but I don't mean it to be. Kirsten Kaschock truly excels here at having Agnes be so undeniably Agnes right out of the gate, and she is not the most pleasant of people. However, if you spend a few hours inside her mind and exploring her memories of her tortured upbringing, you start to experience something that could be love of, hatred of, or fascination with her, if not all these things at once. She is a woman of contradictions, deeply flawed, and with these traits she is one of the most human, fully fledged woman protagonists I've had the pleasure of reading. The first 50 or so pages were a bit of a drag for me personally, the prose took a little getting used to, but after that I found hours of my life disappearing into this book like it was nothing. I would highly recommend this to anyone who likes Gothic literature, but I think anyone who's into cerebral or horror fiction would have a pretty good time with this. Definitely one for a reread!

[Kirbee Barney · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Impossibility of Crows is interesting, which is really the highest praise I can give to any book.

The story is a mishmash of Agnes’s, past memories, her mother’s diary entries, her current odd science experiment, and a small bit of poetry for good measure. Together it weaves a tale of generational trauma that is so familiar to many of us. To quote the book,

“You don’t have to beat a daughter to hurt her. Just wrap her dreams in the plastics of your past - they’ll rot.”

Agnes is rotting. Her childhood, her past choices, and her current decisions all illustrate this. I empathize with her. But what I love most about this book, and what makes Agnes feel the most real to me, is that she is relatable but isn’t likable.

I love it when a female protagonist feels like a person. Agnes feels like a person. A troubled, deeply flawed person, but a person nonetheless.

So, if you are the kind of reader like me who enjoys:

- A well written female protagonist
- Intergenerational familial trauma
- Weird science experiments
- Crows
-Experimental prose

Then this book is for you.

[Kimberly (Puggy Dreadful) · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐⭐⭐⭐ || out of 5

"The birds were quiet. That wouldn't last"

Agnes returns to her family farm after her father dies to reconnect with her past. This unexpected imaginative read was very surprising. Kirsten Kaschock mixes gothic horror, folk, scientific curiosity, and feminism to perfection. While trying to confront her painful past, she experiments with breeding a crow, a crow large enough to carry her daughter Mina. This is hauntingly beautiful story of mothers & daughters and how we attempt to break generational trauma out of love and self preservation. Agnes has all the best intentions, but things doing always go as planned.

"Look for the good. Listen to the Wind. Trust your own heart. Everything else, you'll learn as your go, and, with any luck, I will be there to guide you."


Thank you to University of Massachusetts Press, Kristen Kaschock, and Netgalley for this ARC for my honest review.

[Alex Park · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Impossiblity of Crows was unlike other gothic novels I've read so far. The entire story seemed to me like a prologued stream-of-consciousness, and I loved the (scientific) diary structure. The ending affected me more than I'd thought, and the book itself spoke to some dark parts of me I wasn't aware were accessible through words. The psychological portrait of Agnes was disturbing and beautifully laid—a mirror of the unconscious, where the deepest, most raw and abrasive thoughts take shape. I loved what was poured within this story, and I hate how it left me trembling in a most intimate way.

Thank you, NetGalley and University of Massachusetts Press, for this eerie ARC.

"I can't imagine that fear—not of death, that one's all around—but of being disappeared, made gone. Never-mattered."

[Cameron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley and University of Massachusetts Press for the ARC.

There was definitely something about this book, I could not put it down for very long. The characters are complicated and are very different from each other.

I found it to be well written, with an air of mystery around certain parts of the story. I thought that obvious conclusions were coming and in most instances, I was completely wrong about the outcome.

The main character is an imperfect, flawed character, as were most of the others. This made the human side of this feel very real. The story seemed to have a big, complex metaphor; I am not this was the author’s intent, however, it worked very well.

I loved the ending and the things you are left to assess on your own.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to @NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC of An Impossibility of Crows by Kirsten Kaschock.

This book is a wonderful mix of horror, gothic themes and scientific curiosity. It’s made up of Agnes’ past memories, her mother’s diary entries, and Agnes’ present day told through her entries in her scientific journal.

We follow Agnes as she works through layers and layers of intergenerational trauma, obsessively working to try and solve her problems while her life falls apart around her.
Agnes isn’t likeable, but she is very relatable, and I really enjoyed this one.

[Samantha · Rating 2 out of 5]

First and foremost, thank you NetGalley for letting me read this arc. I must say this book is very unlike anything prior. The writing style was very different. Unfortunately I did not enjoy this one. I felt as though the sentences were merely pasted together one by one instead of flowing into each other.

I am giving two stars because of the uniqueness of how it’s written along with the theme. But sadly this wasn’t for me.

[Jemma Roe · Rating 4 out of 5]

First read from this author, unusual read for me but I really enjoyed it, full of tragedy and trauma, experimental crow breeding and more. Mix of Horror and gothic themes. I would of liked to have read more of this book.