BEWILDERNESS

Two best friends struggle with opiate addiction and poverty in North Carolina.

Irene is mourning the impending loss of her best friend and roommate, Luce, who's preparing to move to Florida with her boyfriend, Wilky, as the two have planned for a life far away from the opiates, users, and dealers they know. But after leaving Luce’s goodbye party, the two women find out that Wilky has been found dead after overdosing in his car outside the bar where he worked. When Luce has an asthma-induced panic attack, the ensuing treatment from paramedics ends a year of sobriety for both girls. Luce spirals in her grief, and Irene follows her back into the world of pills and increasingly dangerous situations. Narrating in both the present moment following Wilky's death and through intermittent flashbacks, Irene recalls how she and Luce initially bonded over abusive customers while waiting tables and how casual usage and hustles were suddenly much more serious when Luce fell in love with Wilky, a former addict who wanted to have a life together after he left the Army. Irene recalls her resentment of Wilky’s plans to take Luce away and how that warred with her desire for all of them to have a fresh start. “And yet," Irene thinks while sitting with Luce outside Wilky's bar, "as I watched her sink back into that numb bliss we used to spend all our time chasing, another pang for the old days went flaring through me. So what if I was clean, if I was also lonely and frightened?” This debut novel is filled with sharp, vivid descriptions of back roads and seedy meet-ups, which contrast with Irene’s dedication to Luce and her fervent belief in the future that might be possible if only the two of them can avoid thinking about Wilky's death and whether his fate, chosen or not, might also become their own.

Absorbing and unflinching.