First published 2025
Helen lives in the hills of Sparta, Tennessee in the early 1990s. She married the wrong man and gave birth to a child she wasn't ready to parent. The monotonous duties of Southern housewife life suffocate her expansive personality. She decides to break free from marriage and motherhood that stifle her, but leaving proves easier than staying gone. Helen grasps for agency as a disaffected homemaker in a small town where social rigidity clashes with her need for rebellion. She embarks on an affair that throws her life into chaos. From football games to Chuck E. Cheese to a Motel 6 bathroom, Helen moves through a landscape that reflects her isolation. She refuses to surrender ownership of her story or her choices, demanding that others listen to her voice rather than impose their judgments. This poetry collection reimagines the mythological Helen as a modern woman fighting for control of her own narrative.
Genres: literary-fiction, domestic-fiction, american-fiction, feminist-theory, contemporary, poetry
Vibes: intimate, introspective, lyrical, melancholic, rebellious
Tropes: coming-of-age, narrative-reclamation, self-discovery, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Sparta, Tennessee, Motel 6
Period: 1993, early 1990s
79 pages · Paperback · Scribner