'Godshot' Author Explains How Fiction Helps Us Face Real-World Adversity
"Art can help me ask the difficult questions of myself," says Chelsea Bieker. In her debut novel, a devastating drought in a California town has led residents to put their faith in a cult leader.
Chelsea Bieker's mother left when she was 9 years old. "Growing up, I was hungry for narratives that were tackling some of the things that I was experiencing and feeling," she recalls. Whenever she found those stories, she says it felt healing, cathartic — a release.
"It didn't feel like I was so isolated — it made my experience feel more universal," she says.
In Bieker's debut novel Godshot, a devastating drought in a fictional California town has led residents to seek answers in a charismatic cult leader. Narrator Lacey May is 14 years old when her mother abandons her.
Bieker understands that, at a time when readers are facing real
