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Afternoon Hours of a Hermit
A darkly funny and profoundly moving new novel by award-winning author Patrick Cottrell.
And who did I think I was, trying to teach the troubled youth how to write?...
I would say I was Dan Moran, a Korean adoptee, single, approaching forty, once plain-in-appearance as a woman, now ugly as a man, that’s who or what I thought I was.
Most importantly, I was no longer useless, I was a writer.
Five years after the death of his youngest brother, Dan Moran is now the published trans author of the autofictional novel Sorry to Disrupt the Peace. He is teaching fiction in Brooklyn and working on his next book–a psychological thriller–when a mysterious envelope arrives for him in the mail. Addressed to the wrong name, it includes a childhood photo of his deceased brother. But who would send such a thing, and why?
Against his better judgment, Dan returns to his childhood home on the eve of his brother’s memorial dinner. His estranged family is surprised to see him, but he ignores them. He drives around in his brother’s Honda Accord, believing he is a detective. He searches for a constellation of unidentified women who may have been involved with his brother, all while being mistaken for another man. He hopes his investigation will reveal exactly who he was to his brother, but in a series of unsettling and destabilizing encounters, what he discovers is the irrevocable distance between who we are and how we are perceived.
Afternoon Hours of a Hermit is Patrick Cottrell’s long-awaited second novel—an existential noir, an absurd comedy, a complex character study, and a heartbreaking inquiry into the paradox of identity, memory, and the very enterprise of writing fiction.
And who did I think I was, trying to teach the troubled youth how to write?...
I would say I was Dan Moran, a Korean adoptee, single, approaching forty, once plain-in-appearance as a woman, now ugly as a man, that’s who or what I thought I was.
Most importantly, I was no longer useless, I was a writer.
Five years after the death of his youngest brother, Dan Moran is now the published trans author of the autofictional novel Sorry to Disrupt the Peace. He is teaching fiction in Brooklyn and working on his next book–a psychological thriller–when a mysterious envelope arrives for him in the mail. Addressed to the wrong name, it includes a childhood photo of his deceased brother. But who would send such a thing, and why?
Against his better judgment, Dan returns to his childhood home on the eve of his brother’s memorial dinner. His estranged family is surprised to see him, but he ignores them. He drives around in his brother’s Honda Accord, believing he is a detective. He searches for a constellation of unidentified women who may have been involved with his brother, all while being mistaken for another man. He hopes his investigation will reveal exactly who he was to his brother, but in a series of unsettling and destabilizing encounters, what he discovers is the irrevocable distance between who we are and how we are perceived.
Afternoon Hours of a Hermit is Patrick Cottrell’s long-awaited second novel—an existential noir, an absurd comedy, a complex character study, and a heartbreaking inquiry into the paradox of identity, memory, and the very enterprise of writing fiction.
224 pages, Hardcover
Published April 21, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
November 8, 2025
Actually exceptional, a damn find book to read.
December 30, 2025
what an absurd book. and killer title. feeling cool and lucky to have gotten my hands on an advance copy. it was so strange. i loved the writing
October 3, 2025
This book had the perfect amount of dark humor and the perfect amount of serious emotions to make it the ideal read. Dan was fascinating and complex and I was really rooting for him as he tried to get to learn more about his brother and the people that were in his life. This book put me right inside Dan’s brain. I swear I felt the emotions and confusion and the contemplations as if they were my own. Some parts had me puzzled and concerned while others left me snickering to myself. This is truly a unique and special book. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
May 6, 2026
A frustrating read! Someone compared this to Evil Genius, but I’m missing that playful, seductive, identity-shifting energy. It’s almost the opposite. I don’t know what bothered me more: the static, self-centred voice, the lack of curiosity about others, or the need to control a shared narrative. Even the mystery (the brother, the women, the past) is about the protagonist, in contrast to Evil Genius, where the protagonist’s identity unfolds in relation to others and those others retain their opacity. The reveal and abrupt ending are flattened into another psychological loop. It’s like being talked at rather than being told a story.
March 25, 2026
I didn't find this darkly funny, just dark...and sad. A white, Catholic, Wisconsin couple adopts three unrelated Korean children, and they become a family. The youngest took his own life five years ago when he was in his late teens/early 20s. Since then, the middle child has transitioned to male, although many of his relatives still address him by his "dead name." In the audiobook, this name is spoken as "Blank" (which I found confusing at first). There's also the eldest brother with whom the MMC had minimal interactions. Bottom line, a dysfunctional family, mental health issues, gender dysmorphia, suicidal tendencies, and estrangements all discussed almost dispassionately by the middle child: a self-proclaimed "detective" and published author now in pursuit of his second book.
The audiobook was well narrated. I just needed more resolution from the story, not just a recounting of old wounds.
My thanks to the author, publisher, @HarperAudio, and #NetGalley for early access to the audiobook of #AfternoonHoursofaHermit for review purposes. Publication date: 21 April 2026.
The audiobook was well narrated. I just needed more resolution from the story, not just a recounting of old wounds.
My thanks to the author, publisher, @HarperAudio, and #NetGalley for early access to the audiobook of #AfternoonHoursofaHermit for review purposes. Publication date: 21 April 2026.
April 12, 2026
've never read anything like this. Patrick Cottrell has based this work of fiction on his real life experiences. It is his second novel with the first being a precursor for Afternoon Hours of a Hermit. I will definitely be going back and reading his first publication. I found this to be an easy read with some heavy topics but Cottrell inserts some dark humor in it and I did giggle at points. All in all though, you are reading Dan's perspective in the book and it leaves you questioning how reliable he is as far as his perception of how others feel about him and his assumptions. Dan is a trans male and throughout the book you see how disconnected his family is from him, how they don't honor his transition and keep referring to the person he was born, the person he was, his dead name. It was sad to read. Then at the other end of the spectrum you see how obsessed he has become trying to get answers for his brother's "untimely death". While he does get some answers, they were not what he was expecting nor were they asked. all while being someone obsessed with approaching those investigations to his own resolution. How reliable is he really? Hhhmmm...then again, I feel his behaviors and actions and feelings are all justified...
As with a lot of literary fiction, you aren't going to get resolution or answers. This was more about the characters and having understood that I think this book resonated much better than if I was waiting to get to those resolutions.
In addition to the book, I listened to the audio. Leo Sheng narrates Afternoon Hours of a Hermit and really did a great job. Leo has a pleasant tone and truly brought to life Dan Moran. Leo's delivery hit when it was needed and stayed afloat throughout the book, he was not flat at all.
Go into this book not expecting answers, go into it to learn about the character and his stories and what brought him to where we are today. If you do that then I think you will be satisfied. I thoroughly enjoyed this!
As with a lot of literary fiction, you aren't going to get resolution or answers. This was more about the characters and having understood that I think this book resonated much better than if I was waiting to get to those resolutions.
In addition to the book, I listened to the audio. Leo Sheng narrates Afternoon Hours of a Hermit and really did a great job. Leo has a pleasant tone and truly brought to life Dan Moran. Leo's delivery hit when it was needed and stayed afloat throughout the book, he was not flat at all.
Go into this book not expecting answers, go into it to learn about the character and his stories and what brought him to where we are today. If you do that then I think you will be satisfied. I thoroughly enjoyed this!
May 15, 2026
A few short quotes from Afternoon Hours of a Hermit:
*
“Friendship has been a form of poison to me, I thought as I tried to picture my friends, especially my writer friends. I kept trying to picture them, my writer friends from the contemporary literature and adjunct scene in Brooklyn. No, the writer friends I pictured only reminded me of the palpable anxiety and awkwardness I felt whenever I interacted with them.”
*
“Perhaps part of the problem was I had surrounded myself with the fiction writers instead of the poets. I had chosen the wrong world to immerse myself in; the poets were nightclub docents of mourning and melancholia and the fiction writers were real estate agents.”
*
“I was ecstatic with joy whenever I had the opportunity to overhear what people said about me as if I weren’t there. Whenever I ran out of things to talk about during my creative writing workshop with the troubled youth, I would, without warning, get up from the conference table and wander out into the hallway, where, if I wasn’t careful, I could spend the rest of the class eavesdropping on my troubled youth, although they hardly ever said my name. I was nothing to them; they preferred to talk about debt, activism, gender, trauma, etc. I was disappointed when I didn’t hear my name come up.”
*
“A few years and nothing to show for all my troubles but the beginning of my psychological thriller, perhaps ten or twelve pages at most, the first ten or twelve pages are the easiest to write, I once said to Thomas Bernhard during office hours, the first ten or twelve pages are effortless, seamless, boundless, effortlessness; it’s the rest of it that’s completely insufferable. It never opens up the way I want it to, I explained to my mother and Aunt Sue. I only wanted to conjure a latticework of light and tranquility, but because of my limitations, I always end up suffocated in a broom closet of despair.”
*
“And some people might find it hard to believe I managed to write a book, a published one, knowing what they know about me, but during my time in graduate school, I learned it’s the most demented and mentally unwell writers who have the easiest time getting their books published, even the most awful, unhinged, stupid, and neurotic person can write and publish a book, then step into a roomful of strangers and talk about it and persuade them to buy it. Almost all my writer friends are suicidal in some way, I reflected, mostly in a soft, ambient way, their suicidal thoughts humming in the background like a refrigerator or a noise-machine, while others are openly suicidal, more suicidal forward.”
*
*
“Friendship has been a form of poison to me, I thought as I tried to picture my friends, especially my writer friends. I kept trying to picture them, my writer friends from the contemporary literature and adjunct scene in Brooklyn. No, the writer friends I pictured only reminded me of the palpable anxiety and awkwardness I felt whenever I interacted with them.”
*
“Perhaps part of the problem was I had surrounded myself with the fiction writers instead of the poets. I had chosen the wrong world to immerse myself in; the poets were nightclub docents of mourning and melancholia and the fiction writers were real estate agents.”
*
“I was ecstatic with joy whenever I had the opportunity to overhear what people said about me as if I weren’t there. Whenever I ran out of things to talk about during my creative writing workshop with the troubled youth, I would, without warning, get up from the conference table and wander out into the hallway, where, if I wasn’t careful, I could spend the rest of the class eavesdropping on my troubled youth, although they hardly ever said my name. I was nothing to them; they preferred to talk about debt, activism, gender, trauma, etc. I was disappointed when I didn’t hear my name come up.”
*
“A few years and nothing to show for all my troubles but the beginning of my psychological thriller, perhaps ten or twelve pages at most, the first ten or twelve pages are the easiest to write, I once said to Thomas Bernhard during office hours, the first ten or twelve pages are effortless, seamless, boundless, effortlessness; it’s the rest of it that’s completely insufferable. It never opens up the way I want it to, I explained to my mother and Aunt Sue. I only wanted to conjure a latticework of light and tranquility, but because of my limitations, I always end up suffocated in a broom closet of despair.”
*
“And some people might find it hard to believe I managed to write a book, a published one, knowing what they know about me, but during my time in graduate school, I learned it’s the most demented and mentally unwell writers who have the easiest time getting their books published, even the most awful, unhinged, stupid, and neurotic person can write and publish a book, then step into a roomful of strangers and talk about it and persuade them to buy it. Almost all my writer friends are suicidal in some way, I reflected, mostly in a soft, ambient way, their suicidal thoughts humming in the background like a refrigerator or a noise-machine, while others are openly suicidal, more suicidal forward.”
*
October 14, 2025
Thanks to Netgalley and Ecco for the ebook. Trans author Dan Moran is living a simple life as an author and teaching writing in Brooklyn, but as the five year anniversary of his younger brother’s suicide approaches, Dan gets an anonymous letter involving his brother that sends him back to his hometown, where most people still remember him as the depressed and angry daughter of the nice Christian couple who adopted three Asian children. Dan takes on the guise of a detective to try and learn if there was more to this suicide than anyone could have imagined.
February 10, 2026
A continued portrait of familial grief five years after a brother's suicide, except narrator Dan has transitioned to male, further alienating himself from his former peers in Milwaukee than he already was as a Korean adoptee. I don't think I've read anything quite like Afternoon Hours of a Hermit, and I was really invested in how Dan interpreted the people and events around him. Mysterious, poignant, and emotionally charged.
May 7, 2026
Wow, what a peculiar little novel.
May 15, 2026
Oh, the writing just thrilled me! It just all made so much sense, and I highlighted 49x (prob could have been more but I tried to hold myself back a bit), and I think I might have squealed with delight at various parts where I felt like, okay, yes, exactly; he's a genius. A few phrases have also solidly entered my and my husband's lexicon and have brought us great joy to sprinkle about in our verbal shorthand.
April 25, 2026
Thanks to NetGalley & Ecco for the ARC!
Patrick Cottrell’s Afternoon Hours of a Hermit stifles a hard-boiled premise with half-baked prose.
The setup for this neo-noir novel is remarkable—Dan Moran, a trans man and “metaphysical investigator,” revisits the death of his brother, but doing so brings him face to face with his deadname as he meets people who only knew him pre-transition. In a metatextual twist, he is the author of a novel that shares a title and plot with Cottrell’s first book (published prior to his own transition). These parallel deaths are a smart place to start, and they feels like a rich site for exploring competing narratives of loss and self-understanding.
Unfortunately, even its best moments are aggressively dull, dragged down by noir stylings that stop just short of cigar-chomping references to “dames.” It’s hard to parse out whether the self-conscious writerly voice is Patrick Cottrell or Dan Moran (I’m inclined to think the latter), but it doesn’t matter one way or the other. Bad writing is still bad writing, even if it’s done intentionally. Moran is the type of narrator to make meaningless references to Adorno and prop them up with allusions to his own exceptional writing and winking invocations of Thomas Bernhard. This character is the most unrelentingly obnoxious person you’d meet in a writing workshop, and Cottrell is so committed to the bit that his themes feel cumbersome and his plot inconsequential.
The writing dutifully trudges past the complexities of interracial adoption, mixed families, suicide, and trans identity, but Moran (or Cottrell) doesn’t do much beyond air grievances that would be better served by giving his grief room to breathe. He seems to view each of these things as interesting simply because they are named. By the time he starts to approach reflection, any goodwill has been bludgeoned to death by the narrator’s detached cynicism.
After reading some interviews with Patrick Cottrell, it seems clear that Afternoon Hours of a Hermit is the heady product of a brilliant mind, but no amount of meta, extra-textual intent can overcome the fact that this feels like an intellectual exercise more than a cohesive novel.
A better book could be both.
Patrick Cottrell’s Afternoon Hours of a Hermit stifles a hard-boiled premise with half-baked prose.
The setup for this neo-noir novel is remarkable—Dan Moran, a trans man and “metaphysical investigator,” revisits the death of his brother, but doing so brings him face to face with his deadname as he meets people who only knew him pre-transition. In a metatextual twist, he is the author of a novel that shares a title and plot with Cottrell’s first book (published prior to his own transition). These parallel deaths are a smart place to start, and they feels like a rich site for exploring competing narratives of loss and self-understanding.
Unfortunately, even its best moments are aggressively dull, dragged down by noir stylings that stop just short of cigar-chomping references to “dames.” It’s hard to parse out whether the self-conscious writerly voice is Patrick Cottrell or Dan Moran (I’m inclined to think the latter), but it doesn’t matter one way or the other. Bad writing is still bad writing, even if it’s done intentionally. Moran is the type of narrator to make meaningless references to Adorno and prop them up with allusions to his own exceptional writing and winking invocations of Thomas Bernhard. This character is the most unrelentingly obnoxious person you’d meet in a writing workshop, and Cottrell is so committed to the bit that his themes feel cumbersome and his plot inconsequential.
The writing dutifully trudges past the complexities of interracial adoption, mixed families, suicide, and trans identity, but Moran (or Cottrell) doesn’t do much beyond air grievances that would be better served by giving his grief room to breathe. He seems to view each of these things as interesting simply because they are named. By the time he starts to approach reflection, any goodwill has been bludgeoned to death by the narrator’s detached cynicism.
After reading some interviews with Patrick Cottrell, it seems clear that Afternoon Hours of a Hermit is the heady product of a brilliant mind, but no amount of meta, extra-textual intent can overcome the fact that this feels like an intellectual exercise more than a cohesive novel.
A better book could be both.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Patrick Cottrell's AFTERNOON HOURS OF A HERMIT is an exquisite novel. The main character Dan Moran, a trans man, is still mourning his youngest brother five years after he died by suicide. When Dan receives a picture of his brother from an unknown sender, he goes home to see if he can learn anything more about his brother and his life before suicide claimed him. What unfolds is a remarkable exploration of memory and how it's impacted by family--and how it's impacted by the relationships within the family. Dan encounters information other members of his family, particularly his mother, had not previously shared, which heightens Dan's already intense need for answers. We also see the different way people are perceived within Dan's family. For example, middle brother Matthias refers to the youngest brother as "my brother" with a strong emphasis on "my." Through comments from various family members, including Matthias, we get very different perspectives on Dan, especially young Dan (or ___ Moran) before he transitioned. This further complicates understanding Kevin Moran as a young child and as an adult before he died. The novel asks if we really know the people in our family even if they were with us as we grew up. It also asks what and why things are kept secret in a family. Joining Dan on his weeklong stay with his family as he navigates reactions to his transition as well as his failures and triumphs to learn more about his brother Kevin is a gift. Dan has a singular perspective and a distinctly dark yet funny way of expressing himself; I mourned losing that voice when the novel ended. I could have easily spent another 200 pages with Dan Moran and it still would not be enough. I loved this novel and highly recommend it.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
I pick my books by the cover, and I try to go in as "blind" as possible, so I am not sure how this book is being described, or to whom it is being marketed. To sum up this novel as succinctly as possible, without spoilers, I would say, "Korean man with major issues, manages to alienate everyone he has ever known, without any discernible reason, and manages to double-down in his efforts during a time of familial grief." And yet it works somehow! The MMC is such a swirling vortex of solipsism, rage, delusions of grandeur, and navel-gazing. He is completely and utterly devoid of emotion, and cannot conjure up even a modicum of respect or solemnity, even when the occasion is screaming for it. Dan Moran is a fascinating man; a completely closed loop and devoid of empathy for anyone and everyone who has ever crossed his path. I have never encountered a character (real or imagined) who, while profoundly introverted, also behaves in such a way that simultaneously screams, "Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!". Like a person with low self-esteem who assumes a posture of performative bravado in order to overcompensate for his deficiencies, but in Moran's case it is without the requisite low self-esteem part. I would definitely recommend this book. It has a compelling storyline, it is a quick and entertaining read, and it provides insight into the type of psyche not often found in literature, or humanity for that matter, a true megalomaniac. ** This ARC was provided by the publisher but all views are my own.
March 27, 2026
I’m not entirely sure why this is a five-star read for me, which feels fitting for a novel that resists clarity at every turn.
Afternoon Hours of a Hermit is deeply disorienting—almost vertiginous. Being inside Dan’s mind feels claustrophobic: he fixates on his brother’s suicide, but even his grief turns inward, refracted through his own sense of self. I found myself constantly questioning him. Is he lying? Is he reliable? Does he even understand the world around him?
There’s a strange instability to everything—his job, his relationships, even reality itself. The novel hovers at the edges of something surreal without ever fully becoming it, which only deepens the unease. Dan is intensely introspective yet profoundly oblivious, so consumed with examining himself that he fails to truly see anything outside of him. Others treat him as if he’s barely there—and in some ways, he participates in that erasure.
It takes so long for his brother to even be named—Kevin—as if grief itself resists being fixed in language. And when clarity does come, it lands hard: “The person dissolves into nothingness, and you can’t bring them back.”
I didn’t always enjoy being in this book, but it stayed with me. There’s something quietly devastating about a character who observes everything and understands almost nothing—especially himself.
I closed it feeling unsteady, and somehow, that feels exactly right.
Afternoon Hours of a Hermit is deeply disorienting—almost vertiginous. Being inside Dan’s mind feels claustrophobic: he fixates on his brother’s suicide, but even his grief turns inward, refracted through his own sense of self. I found myself constantly questioning him. Is he lying? Is he reliable? Does he even understand the world around him?
There’s a strange instability to everything—his job, his relationships, even reality itself. The novel hovers at the edges of something surreal without ever fully becoming it, which only deepens the unease. Dan is intensely introspective yet profoundly oblivious, so consumed with examining himself that he fails to truly see anything outside of him. Others treat him as if he’s barely there—and in some ways, he participates in that erasure.
It takes so long for his brother to even be named—Kevin—as if grief itself resists being fixed in language. And when clarity does come, it lands hard: “The person dissolves into nothingness, and you can’t bring them back.”
I didn’t always enjoy being in this book, but it stayed with me. There’s something quietly devastating about a character who observes everything and understands almost nothing—especially himself.
I closed it feeling unsteady, and somehow, that feels exactly right.
April 22, 2026
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
This was a really unexpected book, and I wish I had read the author's previous work, Sorry to Disrupt the Peace, as this is apparently building off of that story but I think could also be read as stand-alone?
We follow the protagonist (who is the same as the author's first book), Dan Moran, who receives a mysterious photo of his dead brother in the mail and goes back to his small Midwestern hometown in order to reopen his investigation into his brother's suicide which was explored in the author's first book.
I do not really get most of the protagonist's motivations and it feels like they are on the outside looking in on everything that is going on. There is a lot left unexplained (but maybe these are revealed in the first book already?), like why his adopted brother Mathias is suddenly part of the family despite not being present for his brother's funeral years ago, why Dan seems to be consistently left out of any family plans (I fear this might be due to the protagonist’s mental state but I am not sure, it could also be a deliberate oversight from the family), or who exactly even sent the photo of his brother to Dan in the first place?
I am also unsure how autobiographical this is but I suspect quite a bit. Because nothing is really resolved I left this novel feeling mainly sad and uncomfy, but I feel like it does do a great job of showing the lasting impact of grief, the subtle politics of Midwestern politeness and racism, and the identity struggles of someone who not only recently transitioned but who was adopted at a young age from Korea into a super white small town, and the effect this all has on Dan's identity and relationship with his adopted siblings.
This was a really unexpected book, and I wish I had read the author's previous work, Sorry to Disrupt the Peace, as this is apparently building off of that story but I think could also be read as stand-alone?
We follow the protagonist (who is the same as the author's first book), Dan Moran, who receives a mysterious photo of his dead brother in the mail and goes back to his small Midwestern hometown in order to reopen his investigation into his brother's suicide which was explored in the author's first book.
I do not really get most of the protagonist's motivations and it feels like they are on the outside looking in on everything that is going on. There is a lot left unexplained (but maybe these are revealed in the first book already?), like why his adopted brother Mathias is suddenly part of the family despite not being present for his brother's funeral years ago, why Dan seems to be consistently left out of any family plans (I fear this might be due to the protagonist’s mental state but I am not sure, it could also be a deliberate oversight from the family), or who exactly even sent the photo of his brother to Dan in the first place?
I am also unsure how autobiographical this is but I suspect quite a bit. Because nothing is really resolved I left this novel feeling mainly sad and uncomfy, but I feel like it does do a great job of showing the lasting impact of grief, the subtle politics of Midwestern politeness and racism, and the identity struggles of someone who not only recently transitioned but who was adopted at a young age from Korea into a super white small town, and the effect this all has on Dan's identity and relationship with his adopted siblings.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Dan Moran, a trans man who is part of the “writer and adjunct teaching community in Brooklyn,” returns home for his younger brother’s memorial service following the receipt of a mysterious photograph of said brother being mailed to him - no return address or letter included.
Dan is determined to find the sender of the photo and “solve” his brother’s death (a suicide).
The narrative moves fluidly between present and past - blending memories, reflections, grief, and the never ending need for answers to mysteries that might not be solvable.
Cottrell’s writing leans into a very literary, impressionistic but blunt style - less emphasis on a straightforward “solve the mystery” plot and more on atmosphere and internality. He utilizes a repetitive almost poetry-prose way of writing that at times was very effective but easily slipped into being a little irritating.
I had a lot of trouble feeling any kind of consistent empathy/attachment to Dan - maybe an intention of Cottrell. While there were moments of poignance where my heart went out to him, I found Dan to be really distant as a character.
I think if you’re a reader who enjoys a quasi-nonlinear exploration of grief, identity, etc with a helping of some bleak, dark humor then this is a book for you. It unfortunately wasn’t my particular cup of tea.
Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco for this eARC
Dan is determined to find the sender of the photo and “solve” his brother’s death (a suicide).
The narrative moves fluidly between present and past - blending memories, reflections, grief, and the never ending need for answers to mysteries that might not be solvable.
Cottrell’s writing leans into a very literary, impressionistic but blunt style - less emphasis on a straightforward “solve the mystery” plot and more on atmosphere and internality. He utilizes a repetitive almost poetry-prose way of writing that at times was very effective but easily slipped into being a little irritating.
I had a lot of trouble feeling any kind of consistent empathy/attachment to Dan - maybe an intention of Cottrell. While there were moments of poignance where my heart went out to him, I found Dan to be really distant as a character.
I think if you’re a reader who enjoys a quasi-nonlinear exploration of grief, identity, etc with a helping of some bleak, dark humor then this is a book for you. It unfortunately wasn’t my particular cup of tea.
Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco for this eARC
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
I first read AFTERNOON HOURS OF A HERMIT by Patrick Cottrell in early January, and I have spent the past three months trying and failing to find words to express how much it’s meant to me. It’s become one of those books I just carry around the house with me as a sort of security blanket (the last book I found myself doing this with was SARAHLAND by Sam Cohen). I’ve reread AFTERNOON HOURS again this week, and I am still mostly at a loss, but here are some things I feel compelled to say: I have been waiting for a meditation on deadnames like this. Something rigorous and philosophical, something attuned to the surreality and irony and embarrassment and sadness of living with a deadname, and, above all, something laugh-out-loud funny. AFTERNOON HOURS OF A HERMIT is all this and so much more. It is gorgeously written, with clean, gemlike sentences that are simply a pleasure to read. It is also a page-turner, and you will spend the whole book deciding whether to race ahead to solve the mystery or slow down to luxuriate in the prose—what a wonderful problem to have. I have always believed the Bernhardian style could uniquely suit fiction about trans men—the social weirdness, the self-loathing, the ambivalence about the future, about life itself—and Cottrell has pulled it off flawlessly, beyond my wildest dreams.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
I haven’t read Patrick Cottrell’s first novel, SORRY TO DISRUPT THE PEACE, so I don’t think that’s a requirement to read this one. I do, however, think you’ll have a different experience if you read that first.
AFTERNOON HOURS OF A HERMIT follows Dan Moran as he returns home at the 5 year anniversary of his youngest brother’s suicide. After receiving a mysterious envelope with a childhood picture of his deceased brother in it, Dan becomes compelled—almost to the point of obsession—to learn more about his brother and his death. He’s rather on his own to do this, though. His family doesn’t seem to know how to be in relationship with him—both because he published a novel about his brother death, and because they all but refuse to see him as the man he has become rather than the daughter they raised.
I had to sit with this one for a moment before trying to put my thoughts together. It was a bit of a push-pull reading experience for me—a rollercoaster of connectedness to the emotion and discomfort at some of the lengths Dan goes to in search of answers.
Cottrell’s writing is darkly funny and unsettling. One of my favorite aspects is the use of repetition throughout. At the core of the story, however, he asks the reader some difficult questions: What do we really know about others? What do we really know about ourselves? And in the end, I think what I appreciate most about this book is Dan’s earnest search for meaning in an attempt to find some sort of closure for a loss that can never truly make sense.
Thanks to Ecco for the advance copy!
AFTERNOON HOURS OF A HERMIT follows Dan Moran as he returns home at the 5 year anniversary of his youngest brother’s suicide. After receiving a mysterious envelope with a childhood picture of his deceased brother in it, Dan becomes compelled—almost to the point of obsession—to learn more about his brother and his death. He’s rather on his own to do this, though. His family doesn’t seem to know how to be in relationship with him—both because he published a novel about his brother death, and because they all but refuse to see him as the man he has become rather than the daughter they raised.
I had to sit with this one for a moment before trying to put my thoughts together. It was a bit of a push-pull reading experience for me—a rollercoaster of connectedness to the emotion and discomfort at some of the lengths Dan goes to in search of answers.
Cottrell’s writing is darkly funny and unsettling. One of my favorite aspects is the use of repetition throughout. At the core of the story, however, he asks the reader some difficult questions: What do we really know about others? What do we really know about ourselves? And in the end, I think what I appreciate most about this book is Dan’s earnest search for meaning in an attempt to find some sort of closure for a loss that can never truly make sense.
Thanks to Ecco for the advance copy!
May 1, 2026
As with Patrick Cottrell’s first novel, Sorry To Disrupt the Peace, I read Afternoon Hours of a Hermit in two days. Like Dan Moran zooming through the suburbs in his dead brother’s black Honda Accord, it is impossible to move slowly as we unravel the mystery of his brother’s life and death; how these intersect with Dan’s gender transition and reckoning with alienation as a Korean adoptee among well-meaning but clueless white Catholic Midwesterners. Dan’s transition, a “death” that his adoptive family and the people from his past refuse to acknowledge, presents a doubling of the unacknowledged and misremembered reality of his brother’s life. Afternoon Hours of a Hermit expertly explores the desperation to uncover meaning when one’s search is impeded by obstacles of conventional, peacekeeping explanations and the stifling culture of respectability. No one today is writing like Patrick Cottrell, blending humor and obsession as a means to describe the pain of living in the face of white cisgender inflexibility and ignorance. This novel is a gift for those living this experience, providing deep recognition, metaphysical survival strategies, and opportunities to laugh at the absurdity of making a living while at the same time navigating being alive.
May 11, 2026
Much like my experience of reading Cottrell's first novel, reading Afternoon Hours is immersive -- like falling down the well of the narrator's consciousness. The space between interiority and narrative exterior description is so artfully blurred. I often felt lost in thought along with the narrator, Dan, and was actually startled (a few times) to realize he is/we are still in a scene, and there is another character standing there awaiting a response. This should be shocking but sometimes it's funny, because when you're grieving sometimes the universe feels out of whack. The novel is often sad and deadpan funny at the same time. This balance of being two things at once creates a beautiful ambiguity that occurs throughout the novel. Doubling is a kind of recurring theme. Dan's investigation into who his brother really was becomes a meditation on how we even form an identity at all, how a self is built, and what it means to be forced to wear the ridiculous costumes of our names (to paraphrase Dan). Through the advice of Dan's mentor Thomas Bernhard, the detective trope doubles as a metaphor for novel-writing in general. The rich layers of this novel invite re-reading and I look forward to re-reading both Cottrell's books back to back in the coming years.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
It’s been five years since the death of Dan Moran’s youngest brother, and in that time Dan has transitioned, published the autofictional novel “Sorry to Disrupt the Peace,” began teaching fiction writing in Brooklyn, and is working on a new novel, a psychological thriller. But one night, he receives a cryptic letter that includes a picture of his deceased brother. Curious, and a little disturbed, Dan returns to his estranged family’s home on the eve of his brother's memorial dinner, intent on looking for clues, and whether there is more to his brother’s death than he knows.
This was a very interesting read! I liked the writing and the fact that there were no quotations haha, something about that feels very aesthetically pleasing 😝 I also enjoyed the mystery element, which soon turns into more of a character reflection. Dan learns throughout his sleuthing and detective work that he didn’t really know his brother. And that was the biggest mystery of all for this novel: who was he, truly? I also liked the use of a blank space for whenever Dan was referred to by his deadname. It was sad that Dan’s family wasn’t supportive of him and his transition and they often spoke bad about him when they thought he wasn’t listening. In some ways I wish the relationship between Dan and his family was delved into deeper, but at the same time, Dan’s refusal to live with them or attend any of the memorial events they hosted for his brother, felt like he was choosing himself instead, and I admired that.
There were some memories that Dan has that I felt could have been delved into more. They felt important but were never addressed at the end and so it felt a bit unsatisfying. But maybe there will be a third book that goes into more depth with these memories? 👀
Overall, I think this is a great book that many will love! Thank you Ecco Books for my gifted copy. I truly appreciate it! 🩷🩷🩷
This was a very interesting read! I liked the writing and the fact that there were no quotations haha, something about that feels very aesthetically pleasing 😝 I also enjoyed the mystery element, which soon turns into more of a character reflection. Dan learns throughout his sleuthing and detective work that he didn’t really know his brother. And that was the biggest mystery of all for this novel: who was he, truly? I also liked the use of a blank space for whenever Dan was referred to by his deadname. It was sad that Dan’s family wasn’t supportive of him and his transition and they often spoke bad about him when they thought he wasn’t listening. In some ways I wish the relationship between Dan and his family was delved into deeper, but at the same time, Dan’s refusal to live with them or attend any of the memorial events they hosted for his brother, felt like he was choosing himself instead, and I admired that.
There were some memories that Dan has that I felt could have been delved into more. They felt important but were never addressed at the end and so it felt a bit unsatisfying. But maybe there will be a third book that goes into more depth with these memories? 👀
Overall, I think this is a great book that many will love! Thank you Ecco Books for my gifted copy. I truly appreciate it! 🩷🩷🩷
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Dan Moran is a Korean, trans writer returning to his adopted home on the eve of his brother’s death. Searching for clues about his little brother and what caused him to take his own life, Dan embarks on a series of increasingly bizarre lines of investigation, shifting into different personas to try to get to the heart of the matter.
Through his actions and internal monologue we learn the dynamics of his estranged family giving insight into his perceptions - what he thinks is not always what is actually happening.
So many times I cringed through Dan’s interactions, the awkward tension and obliviousness on his part well written. An interesting character who is living in his own world and blind to the people around him, I was captivated by his decisions yet found him very unlikable overall. Despite this I rather enjoyed this short novel and was amazed at what Cottrell was able to accomplish in just over 200 pages.
4.5⭐️
I did a tandem read for this one, switching between physical and audio. Personally while the narrator was fantastic, physical worked better for me! Thank you eccobooks for the advanced physical copy and Harper Audio Adult for the ALC.
Through his actions and internal monologue we learn the dynamics of his estranged family giving insight into his perceptions - what he thinks is not always what is actually happening.
So many times I cringed through Dan’s interactions, the awkward tension and obliviousness on his part well written. An interesting character who is living in his own world and blind to the people around him, I was captivated by his decisions yet found him very unlikable overall. Despite this I rather enjoyed this short novel and was amazed at what Cottrell was able to accomplish in just over 200 pages.
4.5⭐️
I did a tandem read for this one, switching between physical and audio. Personally while the narrator was fantastic, physical worked better for me! Thank you eccobooks for the advanced physical copy and Harper Audio Adult for the ALC.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This follows Dan Moran, a transmasc Korean adoptee to catholic parents who also adopted two other unrelated Korean boys. Dan returns home on the 5th year anniversary of his adoptive brother’s suicide. Patrick’s debut Sorry to Disrupt the Peace follows a similar character pre-transition as they learn about their brother’s suicide. I’m not sure if I would have gotten more out of this from having read the earlier book?
Overall I feel this one is a bit difficult to review for me, like maybe I’m not smart enough for it?
Dan is a super unpleasant character and it felt uncomfortable to read in a way that reminded me of Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte but less chronically online. I’m not sure who I would recommend this to but I do think it was thought provoking and challenging in a good way.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC
Overall I feel this one is a bit difficult to review for me, like maybe I’m not smart enough for it?
Dan is a super unpleasant character and it felt uncomfortable to read in a way that reminded me of Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte but less chronically online. I’m not sure who I would recommend this to but I do think it was thought provoking and challenging in a good way.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Rounded up from 3.75 stars.
Dan Moran returns home for his brother's memorial only to discover that someone has mailed him a mysterious photo, addressed to his dead name, of his younger brother dressed as a detective.
Dan then embarks on a series of questionable decisions in an effort to "investigate" his brother's suicide, and who might have possibly mailed him this photo.
Cottrell's style is blunt and un-fussy, and there are certainly poignant moments, but I had difficulty latching onto Dan as a narrator; he is quirky and aloof, which also might reflect his experience growing up as a Korean adoptee in suburban Milwaukee. He is also, like all writers, a bit self-centered and disconnected from reality, and while there are jokes here, they are awfully bleak.
That said, I think Cottrell achieved everything he wanted. I just can't say I *enjoyed* it.
Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco for the advance copy!
Dan Moran returns home for his brother's memorial only to discover that someone has mailed him a mysterious photo, addressed to his dead name, of his younger brother dressed as a detective.
Dan then embarks on a series of questionable decisions in an effort to "investigate" his brother's suicide, and who might have possibly mailed him this photo.
Cottrell's style is blunt and un-fussy, and there are certainly poignant moments, but I had difficulty latching onto Dan as a narrator; he is quirky and aloof, which also might reflect his experience growing up as a Korean adoptee in suburban Milwaukee. He is also, like all writers, a bit self-centered and disconnected from reality, and while there are jokes here, they are awfully bleak.
That said, I think Cottrell achieved everything he wanted. I just can't say I *enjoyed* it.
Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco for the advance copy!
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
What a whirlwind of a book! Having read his first novel, I was excited to read his second, and boy is the mind of Dan Moran complex. There were times that I was moved and saddened by how isolated Dan seemed to be everywhere he went, but also at times confused and a little frustrated by how the outside world responded to him.
Through all the emotional pitfalls, Cottrell is a beautiful writer and the pace had me turning the page and following along easily. I definitely didn’t expect the novel to end where it did, as I would’ve gladly continued to follow Dan around as he did his Detective work. Most of all, I finished reading the novel wanting the best for Dan Moran, a sensitive soul who no one seemed to truly understand.
Thank you to Ecco publishing house for my advance copy! All opinions are my own.
I will be purchasing a copy to sit alongside “Sorry to Disrupt the Peace” on my bookshelves.
Through all the emotional pitfalls, Cottrell is a beautiful writer and the pace had me turning the page and following along easily. I definitely didn’t expect the novel to end where it did, as I would’ve gladly continued to follow Dan around as he did his Detective work. Most of all, I finished reading the novel wanting the best for Dan Moran, a sensitive soul who no one seemed to truly understand.
Thank you to Ecco publishing house for my advance copy! All opinions are my own.
I will be purchasing a copy to sit alongside “Sorry to Disrupt the Peace” on my bookshelves.
April 28, 2026
I think I might be the problem, but I was not obsessed :/ I think maybe it was just a bad time for me to be reading something with a narrator so deep in his own head because I'm feeling annoyed about that same trait around me irl, but I felt like I wanted to shake Dan and wake him up to what was happening around him too much to submit to his narration. I'm sure that most of that was the point and that it's about grief scrambling you up, but in this exact moment I just couldn't see past my frustration enough to really enjoy this.
I thought that some parts of this were beautiful and moving and thought-provoking: the very end with the mom calling him the wrong name, the parts about being a Korean adoptee, everyone mistaking him for his brothers, the part with Zachary Moon. I also love that Cottrell is a fellow transmasc Fiona Apple head. Ultimately I'm glad I read this, but it just wasn't for me right now.
I thought that some parts of this were beautiful and moving and thought-provoking: the very end with the mom calling him the wrong name, the parts about being a Korean adoptee, everyone mistaking him for his brothers, the part with Zachary Moon. I also love that Cottrell is a fellow transmasc Fiona Apple head. Ultimately I'm glad I read this, but it just wasn't for me right now.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Major thanks to NetGalley and Ecco for providing an ARC of this in exchange for my honest thoughts:
Sooo is no one going to talk about how Mariah Carey’s Fantasy literally advances the plot to climax to hit full character realization?
Swings between the deadpan funny and the absolute sad to offer a surprising trans narrative by way of mismarketed mystery. It’s rather a search of things. Search of the self, search for understanding. Grief makes us do funny things, puts us in funny places, and it’s one that takes its time and care in between characters. A bit too self-reflexive in terms of a novel about a writer and writing, but it’s forgivable in how sweet and odd the approach is. Rich, poignant, the very kind of book I like when it comes to feelings and their earnest outbursts.
Sooo is no one going to talk about how Mariah Carey’s Fantasy literally advances the plot to climax to hit full character realization?
Swings between the deadpan funny and the absolute sad to offer a surprising trans narrative by way of mismarketed mystery. It’s rather a search of things. Search of the self, search for understanding. Grief makes us do funny things, puts us in funny places, and it’s one that takes its time and care in between characters. A bit too self-reflexive in terms of a novel about a writer and writing, but it’s forgivable in how sweet and odd the approach is. Rich, poignant, the very kind of book I like when it comes to feelings and their earnest outbursts.
May 1, 2026
In more ephemeral ways, this reminded me of Twin Peaks: The Return. Both of them are kind of built on the premise of the author's work from years prior but recontextualizing some of the material, going back in and playing in the sandbox again to striking, eerie, and surprising effect, etc. All this to say, I enjoyed this book a great deal and, along with Cottrell's first book Sorry To Disrupt The Peace, feels like a future cult classic of sorts. The material is all there for this to be a more popular, contemporary-issues, blah blah kind of book, but what thrills me so much is that Cottrell refuses to let that happen and instead dwells on what Gerard Manley Hopkins proclaims in his poem "Pied Beauty" as "all things counter, original, spare, strange."
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I simply don't think I am the target audience here.
I am not too familiar with mystery as a genre without anything else being added in, so I'm not sure if this is how mysteries usually go about. It felt like I was in the head of the worst detective of all time, and they have so many issues going on personally and emotionally that it was hard for me to get a grasp or take them serious in any manner. The novel blurb touts comedy though, so maybe I did understand it.
Overall found it hard to give in to the story.
The narrator was nice though.
thank you to netgalley and ecco for the eARC!
I am not too familiar with mystery as a genre without anything else being added in, so I'm not sure if this is how mysteries usually go about. It felt like I was in the head of the worst detective of all time, and they have so many issues going on personally and emotionally that it was hard for me to get a grasp or take them serious in any manner. The novel blurb touts comedy though, so maybe I did understand it.
Overall found it hard to give in to the story.
The narrator was nice though.
thank you to netgalley and ecco for the eARC!
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