Makenna Goodman for Helen of Nowhere

'Virtuosically written, with an insanity inside its sanity - or the other way around - that seems the proper use to make of reality in this moment.' - Rachel Cusk

Makenna Goodman is the author of two novels, Helen of Nowhere and The Shame, and has written for international publications including the New York Review of Books, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Harvard Review, The White Review, BOMB, The Common, ASTRA Magazine and Mousse Magazine. Also an editor, she is based in Vermont.

In the middle of the countryside, a realtor is showing a disgraced professor around an idyllic house. She speaks not only about the home's many wonderful qualities but about its previous owner, the mystifying Helen, whose presence still seems to suffuse every fixture. Through hearing stories of Helen's chosen way of living, the man begins to see that his story is not actually over - rather, he is being offered a chance to buy his way into the simple life, close to the land, that's always been out of reach to him. But as evening fades into black, he will learn that the asking price may be much higher, and stranger, than anticipated. Philosophically and formally adventurous, at once intimate and cosmic in scope, Helen of Nowhere asks: What must we give up in exchange for true happiness?

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