You Live and Die by the Prep Work: The Millions Interviews Karen Tucker
Irene and Luce wait tables at a pool hall in Anklewood, a rural North Carolina town. After a fateful night in which the girls get revenge on a vile customer, they fall under the spell of pills and, at once, become best friends. Written with both humor and gritty clarity, Karen Tucker’s novel Bewilderness is Irene’s devastating reckoning with the year of her life she spent with Luce.
The novel spares none of the joyful details of the characters’ lives, like the hilarious chorus of Reddit users who respond to Irene’s post on r/opioids asking for advice on getting Luce to a meeting. Nor does it avoid looking into the hardest places of addiction, like the moment when a dealer teaches Irene how to use a needle and syringe for the first time.
I read excerpts of in writing workshops with Tucker when we were both attending the graduate creative writing program at Florida State University. For , I spoke with the author over email about what it takes to write about substance
