Poor Deer: A Novel

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 & magic—that always end happily. Enter Poor Deer: a strange & 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 & atones for her role in Agnes’s death. Heartrending, hopeful, & boldly imagined, Poor Deer explores the journey toward understanding the children we once were & the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of life’s most difficult moments.°°°“We all carry our guilt around with us — sometimes long after it deserves to be let go.Maybe it’s because of a decision we made that impacted a loved one in a negative way. Or maybe it was something we said or did that we wished we could take back. Even the tiniest sliver of guilt can grow & fester until it becomes so gargantuan that it turns into a monster.In Claire Oshetsky’s creepy yet magnetic, fable-like novel, “Poor Deer,” that gnawing, inescapable feeling takes the form of a slightly deranged, mossy-toothed imaginary deer — named Poor Deer after the phrase “poor dear” — that stalks Margaret Murphy, the book’s main character, & nags her to come clean about her past indiscretions.” – Alexis Burling, San Francisco Chronicle 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.