--- title: "Madeline McKnight Signs Off Gives a Dying Wall Street Analyst One Last Deal: A Museum for the Witch of Wall Street" description: Evan Brooke's debut Madeline McKnight Signs Off follows a dying Wall Street analyst, her young nurse and a museum for Hetty Green, the Witch of Wall Street. author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief) date: 2026-11-04T12:00:00.044Z updated: 2026-11-04T12:00:00.056Z canonical: https://richbooksmagazine.com/article/madeline-mcknight-signs-off-review image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/unsplash-ha7quajrhjc.webp categories: Fiction content_type: Book Review publication: Rich Books schema_type: Article --- Madeline McKnight Signs Off, the debut novel by Evan Brooke, was published on 3rd November by Atria Books. Its heroine is a former Wall Street analyst whose cancer has come back, and who has months left to live. She spends them building a museum for Hetty Green, the Gilded Age financier newspapers called the Witch of Wall Street, and she hires the daughter of the best friend she lost to help her finish it before she dies. ### Book: Madeline McKnight Signs Off *A Novel* By Evan Brooke Madeline McKnight, a former Wall Street analyst with terminal cancer, writes her final annual report and hires Bri Davis, the nursing-student daughter of her former best friend, to care for her while she builds a museum to the Gilded Age financier Hetty Green. A debut novel about intergenerational friendship, women's ambition and coming of age at any age. [Amazon](https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=9781668225226) ## Hetty Green, the Witch of Wall Street The real woman behind the museum is worth knowing before you start. Hetty Green was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1834 and grew up in a Quaker family that made its money in whaling and the China trade. She learned finance from her grandfather and father, then built a fortune of her own by buying Civil War bonds, railroad stocks and mortgages that other investors had written off, and holding them for years. When she died in New York in 1916, her estate was estimated at between $100 million and $200 million. She was one of the richest women in the world, and she made that money in an era when women could not vote. During the Panic of 1907 she lent to New York City itself, including a cheque for $1.1 million. Journalists repaid her with a nickname. They mocked her plain black dress and her thrift, filled the papers with stories of her meanness, and called her the Witch of Wall Street. For a time Guinness listed her as the world's greatest miser. Madeline carries an unflattering Wall Street nickname of her own, which is the joke and the wound at the centre of the book. When a woman who was hated for her ambition sets out to honour another woman who was hated for hers, you understand within a few pages that the museum is not really about Hetty. ## Madeline's Bargain With Bri Davis Bri Davis is a nursing student in debt and fresh from a breakup. Her mother, Cara, was once Madeline's closest friend, until the friendship ended badly, and Cara later spent the money meant for Bri's education on drink and drugs. Madeline offers Bri a generous salary to leave school and become her nurse, with a $2 million bonus if Madeline lives long enough to see the museum open. Bri assumes it is a scam. She agrees to try it for a week or two, and travels to Madeline's house in the Poconos expecting a frail patient. She finds a formidable woman with a partner called Lee, a Newfoundland dog called Hopie and a list of things she still intends to do. Chapters move between the two women, and their bond grows slowly, over the dog and over fly-fishing lessons on the river, where the harshest woman in the book turns patient and kind. ## Madeline's Final Annual Report The best idea in the novel is its form. Madeline's doctor suggests she keep a journal, so she writes an annual report instead. She ranks her most hated rivals in a pie chart, tracks her net worth and her reputation in a line graph and uses a formula to predict when the cancer will kill her. Sections called Management Lessons send her back to her worst moments, among them a disastrous live television interview and a trip to San Francisco to check on a former best friend whose dot-com company had collapsed. The reports make you laugh, and under the jokes sits a woman who measured her whole life in numbers and is running out of time to count. The other half of the book belongs to Bri, who grows up in her own way over the same months. That is the coming of age the cover promises: one woman in her twenties and one at the end of her life, both learning how to start again. ## What to Know Before You Read It Madeline McKnight Signs Off is a novel about cancer, grief, a broken friendship and addiction in a family, told with a lot of dark humour. It is also full of rivers and fishing flies. Early reviewers who loved it praised the business-report chapters and the friendship between Madeline and Bri. One reviewer who liked it less found the long passages on fly fishing and Hetty Green's history hard going, so if those subjects leave you cold, expect to skim. If you loved The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot or The Collected Regrets of Clover, this sits on the same shelf, with a sharper tongue. Marianne Cronin, the author of Lenni and Margot, calls Madeline 'an unforgettable character', and after a few chapters of her annual reports you will see why. - [The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot](https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=The+One+Hundred+Years+of+Lenni+and+Margot) by Marianne Cronin - [The Collected Regrets of Clover](https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=The+Collected+Regrets+of+Clover) by Mikki Brammer [The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot on Amazon](https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=The+One+Hundred+Years+of+Lenni+and+Margot) | [on Barnes & Noble](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-one-hundred-years-of-lenni-and-margot-marianne-cronin/1136894981) | [The Collected Regrets of Clover on Amazon](https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=The+Collected+Regrets+of+Clover) | [on Barnes & Noble](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-collected-regrets-of-clover-mikki-brammer/1141976587) **Madeline McKnight Signs Off by Evan Brooke** (Atria Books, 352 pages, published 3rd November 2026) [Amazon](https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=9781668225226) | [Barnes & Noble](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/madeline-mcknight-signs-off-evan-brooke/1149526071) ## FAQ **Q: What happened to Hetty Green?** Hetty Green, the American financier known as the Witch of Wall Street, died on 3rd July 1916 at her son's home in New York City, aged 81. She left an estate estimated at between $100 million and $200 million and was buried beside her husband, Edward Henry Green, in Bellows Falls, Vermont.