This is Kelsey Patterson with the Sioux City Public Library and you’re listening to Check It Out.
Today, I’m recommending Poor Deer, the latest novel from PEN/Faulkner Award nominee Claire Oshetsky. I’ve long been stewing over (and constantly editing) a recommendation that could be a worthy review of this hauntingly original title. This Check It Out is literally months in the making.
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. At least 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 the 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 hoofed 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.
Undeniably, grief is not a new theme in fiction, but in Oshetsky’s hands, it feels fresh in a beautiful yet utterly strange and captivating way. Notably sparse at a mere 226 pages, the author’s lyrical writing style is all the more profound in this piece of literary fiction, as the story alternates between Margaret’s present day and her traumatic childhood memories.
Heart wrenching, hopeful, and bold in concept, at its core, 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.
Check out Poor Deer by Claire Oshetsky at the Sioux City Public Library today.
