[{"id":9238,"date":"2026-08-31T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/?p=9238"},"modified":"2026-08-03T08:07:59","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T12:07:59","slug":"how-we-see-the-gray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/reviews\/how-we-see-the-gray\/","title":{"rendered":"How We See the Gray"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a>
by Rachel Le\u00f3n
Curbstone Press, May 2026<\/a><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How We See the Gray<\/em>, Rachel Le\u00f3n\u2019s debut novel, immerses the reader in the child welfare system. At one point, the team of social workers looks at mugshots online and plays a game to guess what each person did to end up in jail. The team genuinely cares about their work; they are just blowing off steam. But the game stops being fun for Meredith Metzger, a veteran at Children\u2019s Social Charities, when she recognizes her mother in one of the mugshots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scene points to what this novel screams out in all its details. Set over the course of a year in Rockford, Illinois, the novel depicts the complexities of the child protective services system through detailed, realistic descriptions. Drawing on the author’s experience\u2014Le\u00f3n has worked in the foster care system for nearly two decades\u2014the novel delves into the inner workings of social workers\u2019 jobs. At times, it feels like a mix of nonfiction and fiction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s easy to make judgments from afar, to gloss over the full story, to think of someone\u2019s worst moment as something that could never happen to you. Early on, Le\u00f3n explicitly lays out this moral dissonance, writing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

No person is perfect, either. Everyone knows this, and yet. We judge relentlessly. We hold others to standards we\u2019d never reach ourselves. Sometimes it\u2019s less about impossible expectations\u2014more about inability, or unwillingness, to see the gray. A person cannot be categorized as ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ Sorry, but people are much too complicated for such labels. Too much nuance at play, too many extenuating circumstances. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The story focuses on Meredith as she\u2019s increasingly stretched between her work, caring for her young son, and being haunted by her past trauma. Her mother was a mean, neglectful alcoholic. Meredith also shuts out her son\u2019s father, deeming him not a good enough parent. As the weight of her work catches up with her, she finds escape in alcohol, repeating the pattern her mother laid down. L\u00e9on brings in other characters who show many sides of the child welfare ecosystem\u2014a teenage lesbian named Ebony navigating foster care, a mother who has lost custody of her two young children, and a black social worker fighting a white-dominated world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to these stories, a chorus of voices representing the social workers opens each chapter, sometimes including case notes. The social workers take pride in where they live, as a place where they raise families, work in the community, and enjoy their favorite bar. As the chorus observes: “We don\u2019t claim to be storytellers, but we specialize in stories. Our job involves collecting them, watching them unfold, and interfering to change their course. […] Because we look from every angle, we believe we know the truth. Easy to forget we only see what people show us . . . or get caught doing.” Each section of the novel also begins with newspaper clippings that suggest the political and cultural atmosphere of Rockford. These clippings cover sports news, weather events, political changes, and acts of community violence and racial injustice. The characters discuss their community’s flaws but also bond over support for the local teams.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story remains compelling even though Le\u00f3n takes care not to rely on sensationalist material. Instead, Le\u00f3n focuses on the daily realities: the social workers who burn out and quit, leaving others to pick up a heavy case load; the parents who miss court dates or visits with their children; <\/strong>kids who leave only to end up in the system again. People\u2019s lives are hard. It is easy to make mistakes. The system works against both parents who have made mistakes and the people who try to help. This structure, along with the wide variety of voices and the specific details of place that Le\u00f3n uses throughout, make this novel a community story. What happens to these characters affects everyone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The novel doesn\u2019t suddenly zoom toward a grand conclusion. Not everyone overcomes their addiction. Not every family is reunited. Not all relationships remain intact. There\u2019s no Hollywood ending here. Instead, it\u2019s the relatively small actions of both Meredith and Ebony that carry the weight. Their actions suggest that positive change, though it happens in small ways, can and does occur when people don\u2019t give up on each other and the community lifts them up and pushes them forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

+++<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rachel L\u00e9on<\/strong> has worked in the foster care system for nearly two decades. She serves as managing director for the Chicago Review of Books<\/em> and fiction director for Arcturus<\/em>. Her work has appeared in Catapult<\/em>, The Rumpus<\/em>, Electric Literature<\/em>, Foglifter<\/em>, Publishers Weekly<\/em>, and elsewhere. She hails from Rockford, Illinois, and is the editor of The Rockford Anthology.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

+<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emily Webber <\/strong>is a reader of all the things hiding out in South Florida with her husband and son. A writer of criticism, fiction, and nonfiction, her work has appeared in The Rumpus<\/em>, the Ploughshares Blog<\/em>, The Writer<\/em>, Hippocampus<\/em>, and elsewhere. She\u2019s the author of a chapbook of flash fiction, Macerated<\/em>. Read more at emilyannwebber.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How We See the Gray, Rachel Le\u00f3n\u2019s debut novel, immerses the reader in the child welfare system. At one point, the team of social workers looks at mugshots online and plays a game to guess what each person did to end up in jail. The team genuinely cares about their work; they are just blowing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":9276,"date":"2026-08-26T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/?p=9276"},"modified":"2026-09-01T05:30:44","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T09:30:44","slug":"a-little-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/stories\/a-little-water\/","title":{"rendered":"A Little Water"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My mother always says, \u201cA little water never hurt anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She means, don\u2019t worry if you get caught in the rain. You\u2019re not made of sugar. You won\u2019t melt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She means, don\u2019t worry if you knock over your water glass at that fancy restaurant on your second date, and the glass breaks and soaks the front of your brand new satin slip dress. There are paper towels in the restroom, or if you\u2019re lucky, a hand dryer. And if a little spill sends him running, he\u2019s not worth chasing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She means, don\u2019t worry if the basement floods just before you move out of your first house. You need to get rid of all that junk anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After they move to Florida because she wants a lanai, a hurricane literally blows the roof off, but she doesn\u2019t blame the storm. \u201cYou have to laugh,\u201d she says, and calls a contractor. But it\u2019s not funny as you have to badger the insurance company for months until the claim comes through, and you begin a rest-of-your-life-long hatred of that soggy peninsula.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She doesn\u2019t tell you how much it hurts after your water breaks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that the baby will scream when the priest dribbles his forehead from the baptismal fount.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that the blister on the five-year-old\u2019s left knee will get infected when he pops that tender little bubble with grubby little fingers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or that his sister will have to wear a patch for weeks when he (accidently) blasts her right eye with that damn SuperSoaker toy he got for Christmas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or senior year, when his two best friends drown in Lake Michigan testing the ice at midnight, and we hear that drowning itself is painless, but those left behind will be forever drowning in pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

+ <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mother dies that same January and it takes us months to decide what to do with her cremated remains. In the end, on a beautiful autumn day, we go back to the lake house she sold before moving to Florida. We order a dozen leis direct from Hawaii and borrow a canoe. Too late, we realize we probably should have gotten some kind of permit before slipping her ashes into the water and floating the leis on the sparkling surface. We want to watch as they drift slowly away but are afraid of getting caught, so we take a mental picture and paddle quickly back to shore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

+++<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Susan Bearman<\/strong> is a writer\/editor currently focused on short fiction. She has published a picture book, stories, articles, and essays. After four children, Susan finally figured out she could name as many characters as she wanted without paying for food, braces, or college. A long-time member of Off Campus Writers\u2019 Workshop (ocww.org<\/a>), she currently serves as co-editor of their anthologyTilt<\/em> and managing editor of the writing craft column About Write<\/em>. Find her at bearman.us<\/a>, susanbearman.bsky.social<\/a>, and instagram.com\/bearmansusan\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My mother always says, \u201cA little water never hurt anyone.\u201d She means, don\u2019t worry if you get caught in the rain. You\u2019re not made of sugar. You won\u2019t melt. She means, don\u2019t worry if you knock over your water glass at that fancy restaurant on your second date, and the glass breaks and soaks the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":9264,"date":"2026-08-25T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/?p=9264"},"modified":"2026-08-23T08:14:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T12:14:28","slug":"an-interview-with-jon-hickey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/interviews\/an-interview-with-jon-hickey\/","title":{"rendered":"An Interview With Jon Hickey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jon Hickey\u2019s<\/strong> debut novel Big Chief<\/a><\/em> (Simon & Schuster) tackles political corruption and family ruptures on the Passage Rouge reservation in the Northwoods of Wisconsin where Mack Beck, a reservation president who looks the part with \u201cthat long hair, that immovable mountain mass, the beadwork medallions and satin ribbon shirts\u201d (15-16), but is only a figurehead, lets his power go to his head. Once a family man who directed the reservation\u2019s elder outreach program, Mack now lives large in a casino hotel suite and drives the biggest truck in town and is always surrounded by an entourage of yes men. Fighting to keep the power to which he has grown accustomed and secure his reelection, he and his right-hand man, Mitchell Caddo, sling mud at their opponent, Gloria Hawkins. Told in first person by Mitchell, a lawyer with an elite education who has returned to the reservation where he has never truly felt he\u2019s belonged, readers witness Mitchell\u2019s emotional struggle to maneuver in Mack\u2019s shadow and define his identity on the reservation and his own place in the community. The brains and savvy behind the figurehead, Mitchell is pulled in different directions as his allegiances, ethics, and loyalties all come under fire. Big Chief<\/em> features a bevy of characters\u2014 from tribal medicine men to police chiefs, and council treasurers\u2014with differing perspectives on how the reservation should be best run, who gets to officially be on the tribal rolls, and who \u2018belongs.\u2019 The threat of disenrollment and banishment from the reservation hovers, and as allegiances die, merge, or shift, the threat becomes pervasive. But, as Mitchell explains, the practice is nothing new: \u201c\u2026it\u2019s not like we invented banishment\u2014the tribe banished people from the village since time immemorial, and if you look at it with some admittedly warped logic, you could argue it\u2019s a traditional practice\u201d (66). Told over the span of one week, Jon Hickey\u2019s Big Chief<\/em> depicts political machinations and corruption run amok, and cultural, familial, political, and romantic allegiances that are more complicated than they initially appear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amina Gautier<\/strong> spoke to Jon Hickey about the inspiration for his debut novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

+<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amina Gautier:<\/strong> What inspired Big Chief<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jon Hickey:<\/strong> Big Chief<\/em> comes from a longtime fascination with how political power works on reservations, mainly from the reservation where my people are from, but also in first nations throughout North America. While the tribal presidents and council members of these nations often use this power for good, this is also power that can be easily abused. Not exactly groundbreaking stuff, but more of a testament to how these issues are inherent in the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than that, I found that the best expression of my estrangement from that community was through talking about the politics. I\u2019ve lived off-reservation my whole life, but Lac du Flambeau has always had an outsized importance to me and my family. It\u2019s the place where we all return over time, yet when I go back, I often feel like a stranger, or an interloper, even though I\u2019m a citizen of that nation. It\u2019s a constant push and pull. I\u2019ve often written about the uneasy relationship I have with the reservation, but nothing truly clicked until I looked at it through a political lens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AG:<\/strong> Talk a little about the choice to write this novel in first person and from one character\u2019s point of view. Were there ever drafts that included any other voices?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JH:<\/strong> Big Chief<\/em> was always in first person. I never really questioned it or tried second or third. It sounded right to my ear that this book about identity and estrangement would be confined to one voice. I found that first-person perspective can feel claustrophobic over the course of 300-something pages, and I felt that fit the major tensions of the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AG:<\/strong> Why is Mitchell Caddo the perfect narrator for Big Chief<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JH:<\/strong> Mitch is the narrator mainly because he\u2019s an outsider-insider, or an insider-outsider. He\u2019s a citizen of the Passage Rouge Nation, he and his family have history there, and in his relatively short time on the reservation, he\u2019s attuned to the undercurrents of the community. He knows the names, the families, the structures of power, yet he is also outwardly coded as an outsider. He doesn\u2019t talk with the rez accent, he separates himself from the lifelong rez-dwellers in crucial ways, and he\u2019s often caught off-guard by things that don\u2019t surprise locals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than that, the point of the book is to follow someone who is feeling a void\u2014in this case, a spiritual void that Mitch and other characters fill with politics, to their detriment. That spiritual void afflicts nearly everyone in the book, and each character has their own ways of dealing with it. I thought that Mitch\u2019s mixture of familiarity and estrangement to Passage Rouge would yield the best insights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AG:<\/strong> Gloria Hawkins seems like the perfect foil to go up against Mack. How did you come up with her?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JH:<\/strong> Gloria\u2019s a composite of a lot of compassionate, politically talented people I\u2019ve admired. She\u2019s the antithesis of Mitch and Mack\u2014she\u2019s competent, has decades of experience in politics and activism, and has a grander, richer vision of the future of the nation. That said, I wanted to explore the more human, relatable side of a character such as that, to show more complicated motivations on her part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She and Layla also provided a necessary counterpart to Mitch and Mack\u2019s toxic masculinity. I didn\u2019t set out to write a book about gender dynamics, matriarchy vs. patriarchy. It just naturally arose as a central theme, and the story just insisted on a character like Gloria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AG:<\/strong> Creating a fictional reservation must require both imagination and significant research. How did you create Passage Rouge?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JH:<\/strong> Passage Rouge resembles places in Northern Wisconsin that I was already familiar with. My mother\u2019s family is from Lac du Flambeau, or Waswagoning in Anishinaabemowin, and I drew from my memories and impressions of that specific place. There are a few other nations in the area, such as Bad River, Menominee, and Oneida, where we\u2019d go to powwows or to visit family. I also lived in Minnesota for much of my childhood, and we\u2019d visit White Earth, Red Lake, or go even further to Pine Ridge. My family and I have worked within the Little Earth community in Minneapolis, as well, which has its own political dynamic but in an urban setting. So much of the research was based on observations, but some of the inspiration for Big Chief<\/em> came from reading about political developments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t want Big Chief<\/em> to be a roman \u00e0 clef of things that happened in any one place, or to portray any specific person, so fictionalizing the setting was essential for freedom of movement. The real challenge was delving into the vast wilderness of Indian law and familiarizing myself with the various legal gray areas and the case law that defines it. I\u2019m not a lawyer. I became a writer so I wouldn\u2019t have to read through legal jargon, and I found myself poring over briefs, trying to get a handle on it and mostly failing, but for the purposes of the book, having that background knowledge and history of legal cases in Indian Country helped me figure out the plot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AG:<\/strong> Let\u2019s talk a little bit about chronology. Your novel takes place over the course of one week. What are the challenges and joys of telling a story over such short span of time? For example, how did doing so influence your sense of pacing and\/or buildup of conflict?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JH:<\/strong> The book used to be so much longer! The first draft was close to 450 pages, structured as a linear rise and fall sort of story about a talented young politician who loses his way. It was interspersed with short chapters about his reelection, which were in present tense (unlike the rest of the book). After completing the draft, I realized so much of it felt like backstory, and any urgency that was there was coming from those short chapters. I ended up cutting everything that occurred before the election, and I was left with the bones of a dynamic, present-tense story that felt kinetic and lean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenge was finding ways to reincorporate the past without bogging down the tension throughout the rest of the book. I found the balance through trial and error, in many, many drafts, so my memory of the actual process is rather murky. I was still adding things back in pass pages before it went to print. The tricky part about adding things I\u2019d cut was doing so in a way that wouldn\u2019t bog down the forward momentum. I got through this by listening to the word processor read it aloud to me, noting whenever my mind would wander, which was a sign that it was getting too heavy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AG:<\/strong> Who are two or three of your literary heroes? Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JH:<\/strong> Let\u2019s start with James Welch: I just participated in the James Welch Native Writers Festival in Montana, which was fantastic, and dedicated to the author. His books Winter in the Blood<\/em> and the Death of Jim Loney<\/em> are ones I reread every couple of years. They blend a poetic sensibility with devastating irony that I\u2019ve always admired, that voice has always felt true to me and my own experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ralph Ellison is another\u2014Invisible Man is full of that same irony, but more than that, I could read Invisible Man<\/em> as a sort of literary Rosetta Stone, pointing me to other works that I found as enlightening (or not). There\u2019s always the sense that the novel is teeming with meaning and allusions, and I happen to think that\u2019s the fun part of writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AG:<\/strong> Any advice for aspiring fiction writers completing their first books?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JH:<\/strong> I always say that it\u2019s important to remember that making any sort of art is a collaboration. If you publish a book, you work with an agent, an editor, a copy editor, marketing and publicity people, etc., and finally, the reader, hopefully many of them. Collaboration requires give and take, humility, a willingness to understand the truth that even though you are the author and the decision-maker, you must allow other people into the process at some point. It\u2019s an act of communication, and what\u2019s the point if your message gets muddled by your own ego?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

+++<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jon Hickey<\/strong> (https:\/\/www.jonvhickey.com\/<\/a>) is a member of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Chippewa Indians (Anishinaabe). He earned an MFA from Cornell University and was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. His work has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review<\/em>, Gulf Coast<\/em>, and the Massachusetts Review<\/em>, among others. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and two sons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

+<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amina Gautier<\/strong> (https:\/\/aminagautier.wordpress.com\/<\/a>) is the author of the short story collections At-Risk, Now We Will Be Happy, The Loss of All Lost Things,<\/em> and The Best That You Can Do<\/em>. For her body of work she has received the PEN\/MALAMUD Award for Excellence in the Short Story. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jon Hickey\u2019s debut novel Big Chief (Simon & Schuster) tackles political corruption and family ruptures on the Passage Rouge reservation in the Northwoods of Wisconsin where Mack Beck, a reservation president who looks the part with \u201cthat long hair, that immovable mountain mass, the beadwork medallions and satin ribbon shirts\u201d (15-16), but is only a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":9236,"date":"2026-08-24T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/?p=9236"},"modified":"2026-08-03T08:03:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T12:03:40","slug":"the-perfect-circle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/reviews\/the-perfect-circle\/","title":{"rendered":"The Perfect Circle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\"<\/a>
by Claudia Petrucci, tr Anne Milano Appel
World Editions, April 2026<\/a><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Having neither a beginning nor an end, a perfect circle is continuous\u2014a loop made of points equidistant from a fixed center. How fitting, then, that Claudia Petrucci\u2019s The Perfect Circle, <\/em>translated from the Italian by Anne Milano Appel, resists a singular beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of starting from a single point in time, the novel cycles between two timelines that orbit the same center. In one, the narrative moves counterclockwise, tracing the fatal fall of twenty-one-year-old Lidia Castelli in 1986 before rewinding through the events preceding her death\u2014such as the construction of the round house she dies within, as well as her affair with the project\u2019s married architect, Dario Sartorio. The other timeline looks ahead to a near-future, in a dystopian Italy shrouded in literal and metaphorical fog, where a forty-something real estate broker named Irene Sartorio sells foreclosed properties to wealthy clients amid climate catastrophe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the novel\u2019s center is 7 Via Saterna, a house that\u2019s \u201csquare on the outside and circular on the inside\u201d which Irene is asked to inventory and sell decades after her father (unbeknownst to her) designs and constructs it for<\/em> Lidia. This ambitious project, as Petrucci\u2019s narrator describes, was \u201cbased on that deception, on the assurance of a certain presumption [\u2026] and the subsequent unmasking of preconception, the crumbling of logical deduction.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such \u201ccrumblings\u201d abound throughout the novel. Of these, perhaps the most visible might be the collapse of its two alternating timelines. In the \u201cmilky impenetrability\u201d of a future Milan, the past does not stay buried; rather, when Irene arrives at 7 Via Saterna, she discovers Lidia, a squatter on the property whose appearance uncannily matches that of the young woman described in the sections unraveling across the mid-1980s. Irene asks, \u201cHow did you get in?” The stranger replies, “From the back. I have the key.\u201d But might Lidia mean that she comes in from the past <\/em>as well? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Petrucci’s language is frequently directional: \u201cspecters mov[e] quickly in all directions,\u201d Lidia is often described as emerging or moving \u201cto the left.” Irene follows, “as if Lidia were ferrying her into a dream.” These recurring, descriptive moves that cause the past to feel increasingly present<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If a circle possesses a center from which every point is equidistant, then Lidia and Irene initially <\/em>occupy positions on opposite sides of that center, mirroring one another across time as their characters move through the same (albeit changed) space. As the novel\u2019s separate temporalities begin to crumble, however, Lidia and Irene exist less on parallel lines and more on converging ones. In this way, Petrucci seems to set the circle of time upright, allowing it to roll like a hoop whose highest and lowest points continuously exchange places\u2014and, when viewed from above, whose opposite points appear as one, as bookends of a diameter speared through (and connecting) both. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The house at 7 Via Saterna is particularly charged. Beyond being marked by Lidia\u2019s death and the past\u2019s lingering presence, the house comes to represent a failed domestic ideal\u2014a tragic repository riddled through with loss and absence\u2014as Dario\u2019s ambitious construction, conceived as an expression of love, instead memorializes a disastrous extramarital affair. In Petrucci\u2019s hands, the house undergoes a symbolic inversion, shifting from a place of permanence and stability to one characterized by alienation and loss. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This inversion nods toward ecological precarity as the erosion of the domestic mirrors the erosion of the natural world and its similarly collapsing foundations. In Irene\u2019s timeline, the house acquires yet another meaning, as a commodity to be catalogued, auctioned, and preserved solely <\/em>for a select few. As Irene\u2019s father, Dario, insists while critiquing her \u201csalvage dealer\u201d occupation: \u201cThe properties you sell to the highest bidder don\u2019t belong to individuals, but to history, to the past, to a past that is also yours. Houses are not objects, they\u2019ve been homes.\u201d The question of the home becomes a question of habitability. What of the larger \u201chome\u201d that humans inhabit? What of the planet itself, a home equally vulnerable to neglect and exploitation and eventual and potentially irreversible collapse? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfolding alongside the planet\u2019s ecological hemorrhaging are other deaths as well as potential births. Lidia’s death is juxtaposed with Irene’s movement toward motherhood. In one intimate scene, the two characters occupy positions evocative of mother and child: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Irene pulls her close, pressing a hand on her head. The girl responds by sliding her mouth to the nipple; taking it between her lips she begins to suck gently [\u2026] innocently, under Irene\u2019s petrified gaze, until she\u2019s satisfied, then remains still with her face on her breast. As if she had performed the most natural act in the world, she falls asleep there.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Elsewhere, the novel repeatedly (and sometimes playfully) tugs on the division between endings and beginnings. One paradox that emerges is the mathematical construction invoked by the novel\u2019s title itself, for perfect circles do not exist in the physical world. They exist only where abstraction allows for a recognition of patterns that reality can only approximate, in mathematics, in language, in literature\u2014as in Petrucci\u2019s The Perfect Circle<\/em>.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

+++<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Claudia Petrucci<\/strong> studied Modern Letters in Milan before moving to Perth, Australia. Her reportages and short stories\u2014which range from realistic to experimental to science fiction\u2014have been published in Cadillac, minima&moralia<\/em>, and elsewhere. Her debut novel, The Performance<\/em>, also published by World Editions, was shortlisted for the John Fante Award and won the prestigious Premio Flaiano Giovani in Italy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

+<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anne Milano Appel<\/strong>, based in California, has translated works by a number of leading Italian authors for a variety of publishers in the US and UK. Among her recent translations are works by Antonio Scurati, Claudio Magris, and Paolo Maurensig. Her awards include the Italian Prose in Translation Award, the John Florio Prize for Italian Translation, and the Northern California Book Award for Translation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

+<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A multimedia artist currently based in Minneapolis, Court Ludwick <\/strong>is the author of These Strange Bodies <\/em>(ELJ Editions, 2024). Her writing has been nominated for Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize, and Best Microfiction, and can be found in Washington Square Review, EPOCH, Denver Quarterly, Permafrost Magazine, <\/em>and elsewhere. Her visual and html work has been supported by the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts and the Sioux Falls Arts Council, and has appeared in publications like Reed Magazine, diode, <\/em>and Quarterly West<\/em>. She has taught workshops on hybrid writing and experimental form, most recently for The Loft Literary Center, the Dakota Writing Project, and as a guest lecturer at Rhode Island College. Court currently teaches at Augsburg University, where she is working on a novel and ongoing experiments in new media. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having neither a beginning nor an end, a perfect circle is continuous\u2014a loop made of points equidistant from a fixed center. How fitting, then, that Claudia Petrucci\u2019s The Perfect Circle, translated from the Italian by Anne Milano Appel, resists a singular beginning. Instead of starting from a single point in time, the novel cycles between […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":9241,"date":"2026-08-19T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/?p=9241"},"modified":"2026-08-22T07:39:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T11:39:00","slug":"annie-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/stories\/annie-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Annie & I"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A-Side<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan\u2019t Feel My Face\u201d \u2013 The Weeknd \u2013 Beauty Behind the Madness<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnder Your Spell\u201d \u2013 Desire \u2013 Desire<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlive With the Glory of Love\u201d \u2013 Say Anything \u2013 Is a Real Boy<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYoung And Beautiful\u201d \u2013 Lana Del Rey \u2013 Music From Baz Luhrmann\u2019s Film The Great Gatsby<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStolen\u201d \u2013 Dashboard Confessional \u2013 Dusk And Summer<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDeath of a Bachelor\u201d \u2013 Panic! At The Disco \u2013 Death of a Bachelor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSea of Love\u201d \u2013 The National \u2013 Trouble Will Find Me<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

+ <\/p>\n\n\n\n

B-Side<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStay\u201d \u2013 Mac Miller \u2013 The Divine Feminine<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNothing At All\u201d \u2013 Taking Back Sunday \u2013 Happiness Is<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWithout You\u201d \u2013 Breaking Benjamin \u2013 Dear Agony<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnniversary of an Uninteresting Event\u201d \u2013 Deftones \u2013 Deftones<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGives You Hell\u201d \u2013 The All-American Rejects \u2013 When The World Comes Down<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood Riddance (Time of Your Life)\u201d \u2013 Green Day \u2013 International Superhits!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSince I Left You\u201d \u2013 The Avalanches \u2013<\/em> Since I Left You<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

+++<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kyler Akagi<\/strong> is a writer from Kansas. He spent his childhood in Minnesota. His work has been published in Middle West Press<\/em> and Wingless Dreamer<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A-Side:
\n\u201cCan\u2019t Feel My Face\u201d \u2013 The Weeknd \u2013 Beauty Behind the Madness<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":9212,"date":"2026-08-17T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/?p=9212"},"modified":"2026-07-25T04:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T08:42:09","slug":"the-past-pursues-us-like-detectives-debt-collectors-thieves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/reviews\/the-past-pursues-us-like-detectives-debt-collectors-thieves\/","title":{"rendered":"The Past Pursues Us Like Detectives, Debt Collectors, Thieves"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\"<\/a>
by Juan Pablo Villalobos, tr Daniel Hahn
And Other Stories, July 2026<\/a><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In migration tales, a distinction prevails between those called \u201cimmigrants\u201d and others known as \u201cexpats.\u201d The latter are usually white and rich, or at least, richer <\/em>than immigrants. Implicit in their privilege is the fact that desire, not need, has compelled them to leave their home countries. They can also choose to travel between their adopted countries and home\u2014and they can return. Part autofiction and part whodunnit, The Past Pursues Us Like Detectives, Debt Collectors, Thieves<\/em> suggests the impossibility of returning to the past, of returning home, while expecting to find the place, and oneself, unchanged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JP, the novel\u2019s narrator, is more of an expat than a migrant. As the novel opens, JP has returned home to the provincial town of Lagos, Mexico to visit his family and help care for his mother, who needs an expensive medical procedure. In JP\u2019s mind, the trip is merely \u201ca break, a pause in my real life abroad.\u201d But when he accepts an invitation to have a drink with his childhood \u201cfrenemy\u201d Everardo, his plans unravel. JP punches Everardo in the face. When Everardo turns up dead the next morning, JP is the obvious suspect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attempting to avoid blame for Everardo\u2019s death, JP makes choices that suggest he is guilty and increasingly unstable. While the police are looking for him, he leaves the city with his mother, only to find himself unable to pay for her medical treatment because his account has been mysteriously emptied. Yet his acquaintances keep asking him for money. They also keep giving him white pills, sometimes claiming they\u2019re to calm his nerves, other times saying they\u2019ll energize him. Photographs of these pills and of a bullet casing appear throughout the text. All this makes for a humorous take on the classic whodunnit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether he is guilty of Everardo\u2019s death or not, guilt over having moved abroad haunts JP throughout the novel. His adopted country remains unnamed. (For those looking for traces of autofiction, the author, who shares the initials of his narrator, lives in Spain.) He becomes annoyed when people repeatedly accuse him of misunderstanding Mexico because he no longer lives there; defensively he replies that he still follows the local news. \u201cI knew more,\u201d he insists, \u201cabout the disputes between the cartels for control of the town than people who still lived here, who preferred not to know, not to look into it, so they could go about their lives without being constantly terrified.\u201d Among those who still live there is JP\u2019s family: his parents and the four siblings who care for them in an old house with an unreliable water supply. Is JP\u2019s defensiveness a manifestation of the guilt he feels for leaving? Is his offer to pay the family\u2019s medical bills an act of atonement?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is clear is that JP is struggling to square his memories of Lagos\u2014the Lagos of the past\u2014with his present experience. He admits this sometimes, though only to himself. \u201cHowever much it went on describing itself as a small town,\u201d he thinks, \u201cand however much in my head, in my memory, that\u2019s what it always was [\u2026] there was almost nothing left now of the little peaceful provincial town I\u2019d grown up in.\u201d He seems almost offended by the new bars that have opened on the waterfront serving expensive \u201ccraft beers and chicken wings.\u201d Even his argument with Everardo stems from conflicting versions of a story from their past. \u201cHow\u2019re you gonna remember if you\u2019ve been away so long?\u201d Everardo asks, moments before JP lands his blow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As much as JP is haunted by his past, though, the novel makes little room for melancholy. Villalobos constantly flexes his knack for dark humor. At one point, JP\u2019s aunt picks up a bullet casing from the ground and laments that she doesn\u2019t \u201cunderstand where this place is headed these days.\u201d JP thinks that, \u201cConsidering that piece of evidence, its indisputable materiality, there was only one place, if we were just being logical: the cemetery.\u201d Daniel Hahn\u2019s translation retains the casual and self-effacing humor of the narrator\u2019s Spanish. After referring twice to \u201cold sayings,\u201d JP realizes that \u201conce you\u2019ve got two sayings in a row, well, then you\u2019re on your way to having a whole system of prejudices, so probably best for me to stick to the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The facts unfold over two hundred and forty pages. Villalobos is stretching himself beyond the novella-length works that earned him early accolades. His widely acclaimed first novel, Down the Rabbit Hole <\/em>(2011), shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, was only ninety-eight pages long. While this stretch is welcome, there\u2019s a hint of the author\u2019s discomfort in sustaining such a long narrative. The conclusion arrives a little too abruptly, a little too easily, leaving some central mysteries unresolved. The result is an uncertainty about whether the stakes were ever that high for JP, and whether he has earned the insight he claims at the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of which is fair and, arguably, intentional. Villalobos seems more interested in subverting the conventions of crime and autofiction to build the novel\u2019s arguments. That the novel makes only a half-hearted attempt at resolving the murder case mirrors the Lagos police department\u2019s inefficiency. The near total absence of JP\u2019s wife and children from the pages of the novel, and his refusal to name the country where he lives, illustrate how strictly he experiences the bifurcation between his past life in Mexico and his present one as an expatriate. And the increasingly absurd plot conveys JP\u2019s disorientation; after every twist and turn, he seems to arrive at the same place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

+++<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Juan Pablo Villalobos<\/strong> was born in Mexico in 1973. He\u2019s the author of the novels Down the Rabbit Hole<\/em>, Quesadillas<\/em>, I\u2019ll Sell You a Dog<\/em>, I Don\u2019t Expect Anyone to Believe Me<\/em> and The Invasion of the Spirit People<\/em>, and of the non-fiction book The Other Side: Stories of Central American Teen Who Dream of Crossing the Border<\/em>. His books have been translated into more than 15 languages. Down the Rabbit Hole<\/em> and I Don\u2019t Expect Anyone to Believe Me<\/em> were adapted for film and premiered on Netflix. He lives in Barcelona, where he teaches writing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

+<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniel Hahn<\/strong> lives in the UK and translates from Portuguese, Spanish and French. His translations have won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award and been shortlisted for the Booker International Prize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

+<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Krista Timeus Cerezo<\/strong> is a Guatemalan literary critic and fiction writer whose work has appeared in AGNI<\/em>, Puerto del Sol<\/em>, Words Without Borders<\/em>, World Literature Today<\/em>, and elsewhere. She splits her time between Guatemala City and Barcelona. She holds a PhD in Public Policy from the Hertie School in Berlin and an MFA from NYU.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In migration tales, a distinction prevails between those called \u201cimmigrants\u201d and others known as \u201cexpats.\u201d The latter are usually white and rich, or at least, richer than immigrants. Implicit in their privilege is the fact that desire, not need, has compelled them to leave their home countries. They can also choose to travel between their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":9240,"date":"2026-08-12T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/?p=9240"},"modified":"2026-08-03T07:59:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T11:59:22","slug":"flowers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/stories\/flowers\/","title":{"rendered":"Flowers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I got in the car with the girls after the ceremony. They were as talkative as ever; Stephanie may have been more talkative than usual. I told myself it was a defense mechanism\u2014that it helped them cope with the loss or made them feel like they had some level of control, even if it was only over the words coming out of their mouths. The alternative, that they didn\u2019t care as much as I did, was too upsetting to consider. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow are we going to get to school next month?\u201d Stephanie said. \u201cYou\u2019ve never taken us to school. Won\u2019t you have to work?\u201d Lindsey started crying, but it took me a minute to notice. I\u2019d heard so much of it I was desensitized. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll get you to school. Don\u2019t worry about that right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat do you mean we?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe,\u201d I said. \u201cThe collective we. I don\u2019t know what I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat about Christmas?\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChristmas will be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I took what I thought was the same path to get out of the cemetery as I\u2019d taken to get in but quickly realized it wasn\u2019t. There were statues I didn\u2019t recognize. Ones I would have noticed coming in. I\u2019d somehow driven us into the wealthier section of the cemetery where every other grave was either in a mausoleum or marked by a life-sized humanoid statue. One, in particular, seemed to depict a clown in full makeup, juggling three gray balls that hung in the air by some illusion of stonework. Glancing into the rearview mirror, I saw the girls had their heads resting on their respective windows like bookends. They didn\u2019t realize we were lost yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDid either of you see where Aunt Alyssa\u2019s car went?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d Stephanie said. I heard her head unstick from the window as she lifted it to speak. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNothing,\u201d I said. \u201cGo back to sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t asleep.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t asleep either,\u201d Lindsey said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What type of car did Alyssa drive anyway? I tried to picture her climbing into it in that awkward way she always did. It must have been something big and obnoxious\u2014too big for her anyway. A yellow Ford something? It was yellow, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre we lost?\u201d Stephanie said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhere are we?\u201d Lindsey said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not lost,\u201d I said. \u201cWe\u2019re the opposite of lost.\u201d It looked like it was going to rain, and I said a silent prayer that it would at least hold off until we\u2019d made it back to the main gate. My cataracts made it difficult to see in the rain, and the roads were uncomfortably narrow. I made a quick turn to tail a blue Subaru, hoping it was on its way out and not in. I looked for any type of landmark I could find to orient myself, but there were graves extending to the horizon in every direction. I felt as close as I\u2019d ever been to being lost at sea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a while, the Subaru stopped, and an old woman got out. Definitely not Alyssa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShit,\u201d I said. I heard both heads unstick. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The woman hobbled over to a grave, flowers in hand, and tossed them down as if she didn\u2019t care exactly where they landed. She stood there for a moment, head bowed, and got back into her car. How many times had she done this? Was it ever anything beyond transactional? I promised myself I would be better, but what did that mean? What could you do? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre we leaving?\u201d Stephanie said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re leaving,\u201d I said, and I kept behind the woman in the Subaru, hoping she\u2019d lead me out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

+++<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nicholas Bacci Siegel<\/strong> is a writer from Louisville, KY who holds his MFA in creative writing from Spalding University. His stories have been published in Palooka, Bourbon Penn<\/em>, and 7×7 LA<\/em>, among other places. In addition to writing fiction, he has published articles with many local, Louisville magazines and has experience as a professional copywriter, serving clients such as Sullivan University, Standlee Forage, and more. You can find his work at nabsiegel.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I got in the car with the girls after the ceremony. They were as talkative as ever; Stephanie may have been more talkative than usual. I told myself it was a defense mechanism\u2014that it helped them cope with the loss or made them feel like they had some level of control, even if it was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":9130,"date":"2026-08-10T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/?p=9130"},"modified":"2026-07-08T02:09:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T06:09:36","slug":"if-you-think-your-heart-can-take-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/reviews\/if-you-think-your-heart-can-take-it\/","title":{"rendered":"If You Think Your Heart Can Take It"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\"<\/a>
by Suzanne McConnell
Serving House Books, June 2026<\/a><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Often told in women’s voices, McConnell’s stories in this collection range in time from the 1930s to the Covid-19 pandemic and take place in a transatlantic world, ranging from Italy and Puerto Rico to California, New York City, and the American Midwest. While McConnell’s women sometimes find themselves through their lovers, they also strive for autonomy. They decide for themselves; whether or not they make the best decisions is another matter. Yet McConnell’s are not passive women. These are women with vocabulary, who know their minds, who live fearlessly, very much presuming\u2014as the title suggests\u2014that their hearts can take it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether it\u2019s the only child of an Italian family to survive the pillage by the Nazis, or the painter eking a living in NYC in the Sixties, or the woman marrying later in life who makes a torturous excursion to a fertility clinic in West Germany at a time that’s clearly before the felling of the Wall, McConnell\u2019s women are chasing down their lives. They are women on quests, in the thick of making their lives happen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the collection’s first, masterful story, \u201cNeighbors,\u201d two women are living across a hall from each other and trying to pursue their art. Both Isabella and Viv are struggling after break-ups and finding solace with \u201csometime lovers.\u201d While her neighbor has the benefit of wealthy parents, Isabella, the protagonist, must work to support herself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

‘You\u2019ll find another boyfriend,\u2019 says the neighbor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘So will you,\u2019 I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We both find sometime lovers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘Mine\u2019s married\u2026.’<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Isabella’s relationship to her painting seems in jeopardy, not only from the encroachments of her day job but also from her need to attend to Viv, whose mental health begins to spiral out of control. This story is gripping, both for Isabella\u2019s struggle and the evocation of hard-luck times in New York City, not to mention the snap and crackle of McConnell\u2019s prose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a prize-winning story, titled \u201cO. P. Climber,\u201da young girl on an Arkansas farm shows the first sign of resistance against her father as she defends a baby goat she\u2019d personally raised (and named O. P. Climber), determined to keep it from being slaughtered. In another story, a woman who expects to lead what was once considered the \u201ccharmed life of a woman\u201d does meet proper boy and eventually marries and has a child. More than once, the themes of art and sculpture come into play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thrill of the title story grows into suspense as a young couple navigates their relationship high on a Pacific cliff. “Kathleen,” he says. “Don\u2019t take me away from the ocean.” His plea touches off an explosion within Kathleen: “No, no, she thought wildly. Keep me going up cliffs. Don\u2019t let me kill you, too. I love you, I love you, I couldn\u2019t bear to watch you die.” Hearing these thoughts “explode through some contained part of her head,” she “understood with certainty that they were the truth. She stood on tiptoes, pulling him to her, and rubbed her face against his firmly and gently as a mother passing her tongue over innocent fur. She knew then what she would do.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a rich collection that, finally, is hard to categorize except for the thrill it gives the reader. Part II, aptly named \u201cThe Rag-and-Bone Shop,\u201d alludes to Yeats\u2019s line, closing one of his last poems, that sorrowfully speaks of waning inspiration. Interestingly, while this is the only part of the collection that’s given a title, it offers stories constructed in a meta-world of unnamed writers, readers, and editors identified merely by their roles. It\u2019s significant that McConnell, herself the former fiction editor at Bellevue Literary Review,<\/em> has played all these parts and knows them well\u2014their power, their shadows, their ironies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While this is her first collection of stories, McConnell, who was a student of Kurt Vonnegut, co-authored a book with him on Vonnegut\u2019s iconic approach to writing, titled Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style.<\/em> The reader of these sixteen stories so full of humor and pathos\u2014and so elegantly and meticulously written\u2014will note that McConnell practices what she has preached. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

+++<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suzanne McConnell<\/strong> is a writer, editor, and educator. Her stories, essays, and poems have appeared in the Saint Ann\u2019s Review<\/em>, The Brooklyn Rail<\/em>, The Fiddlehead<\/em>, and Poets & Writers, <\/em>among others, and her work has been translated into Chinese, for the Yangtze River Series. Twice nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize, McConnell has held writing residencies at the Ucross Foundation, Dorland Mountain Arts Colony, and Villa Montalvo Center for the Arts. She taught writing and literature at Hunter College for thirty years and was the Scholar\/Facilitator in Literature and Medicine at two New Jersey hospitals\u2014the University of Medicine and Dentistry and the Department of Veteran Affairs. With Kurt Vonnegut, she is the co-author of Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style <\/em>(Seven Stories Press, 2019). She holds a BA in sociology from the University of Arkansas and an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers\u2019 Workshop. Since 2006, she has been fiction editor of the Bellevue Literary Review<\/em>. She and lives in New York City and Wellfleet, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

+<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twice a Pushcart nominee, Geri Lipschultz<\/strong> has published in Terrain, The Rumpus, Ms., New York Times, The Toast, Black Warrior Review, <\/em>and College English<\/em>, among others. Her work appears in Pearson\u2019s Literature: Introduction to Reading and Writing<\/em> and in Spuyten Duyvil\u2019s The Wreckage of Reason<\/em> II. She holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and a Ph.D. from Ohio University and currently teaches writing at Borough of Manhattan Community College. She was awarded a CAPS grant from New York State for her fiction, and her one-woman show  Once Upon the Present Time<\/em> was produced in NYC by Woodie King, Jr. Her novel, Grace before the Fall<\/em>, was published by Dark Winter Press in September 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Often told in women’s voices, McConnell’s stories in this collection range in time from the 1930s to the Covid-19 pandemic and take place in a transatlantic world, ranging from Italy and Puerto Rico to California, New York City, and the American Midwest. While McConnell’s women sometimes find themselves through their lovers, they also strive for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/necessaryfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}]