Lily Iona Mackenzie’s new novel Freefall: A Divine Comedy is a “coming-of-age” novel about four women turning sixty. As a woman of “a certain age,” this concept naturally caught my attention. The story of “wacky installation artist” Tillie Bloom and three friends from her teenage years follows the women’s lives over four decades in three countries, centered in the San Francisco Bay area, Whistler, BC, and Venice, Italy. The result is an imaginative, sometimes “hilarious,” romp with a touch of magical realism that also turns out to be a serious meditation on the relationship between art and mortality.

Besides Freefall, Mackenzie has published reviews, interviews, short fiction, poetry, travel pieces, essays, and memoir in over 160 American and Canadian venues.