A wondrous, tender novel about a young girl grappling with her role in a tragic loss—and attempting to reshape the narrative of her life—from PEN/Faulkner Award nominee Claire Oshetsky.
Margaret Murphy is a weaver of fantastic tales, growing up in a world where the truth is too much for one little girl to endure. Her first memory is of the day her friend Agnes died.
No one blames Margaret. Not in so many words. Her mother insists to everyone who will listen that her daughter never even left the house that day. Left alone to make sense of tragedy, Margaret wills herself to forget these unbearable memories, replacing them with imagined stories full of faith and magic—that always end happily.
Enter Poor Deer: a strange and formidable creature who winds her way uninvited into Margaret's made-up tales. Poor Deer will not rest until Margaret faces the truth about her past and atones for her role in Agnes's death.
Heartrending, hopeful, and boldly imagined, Poor Deer explores the journey toward understanding the children we once were and the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of life's most difficult moments.
There's a strange fable-like quality to this novel about grief and the stories children tell to make sense of it. Sophie Amoss brings all that into her performance by varying her tone and pacing, and shifting her voice as the story moves between time periods. As a girl, Margaret loses her best friend in a tragic accident. Her role in the death is murky, and as she grows older, her memory of event
