It is a novel about female friendship and devotion, the roles made available to us, and how we become ourselves. Who will she be if she isn't with her sisters? These women, the church, have been her home-or has she just been hiding?ĭisarming, delightfully deadpan, and full of searching, Claire Luchette's Agatha of Little Neon offers a view into the lives of women and the choices they make. Agatha is forced to venture out into the world alone, to teach math at a local all-girls high school, where for the first time in years she will have to reckon with what she sees and feels all on her own. They head up a halfway house, where they live alongside castoffs like the jawless Tim Gary and the headstrong Lawnmower Jill.

They land in Woonsocket, a former mill town now dotted with wind turbines.

The four of them are devoted to Mother Roberta and to their quiet, purposeful life.īut when the parish goes broke, the sisters are forced to move.

Their world is contained within the little house they share. Agatha of Little Neon is Luchette's first novel.Claire Luchette's debut, Agatha of Little Neon, is a novel about yearning and sisterhood, figuring out how you fit in (or don't), and the unexpected friends who help you find your truest self.Īgatha has lived every day of the last nine years with her sisters: they work together, laugh together, pray together. A 2020 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, Luchette graduated from the University of Oregon MFA program and has received grants and scholarships from MacDowell, Yaddo, the Millay Colony for the Arts, Lighthouse Works, the Elizabeth George Foundation, and the James Merrill House. CLAIRE LUCHETTE has published work in the Virginia Quarterly Review, the Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, and Granta. It is a novel about sisterhood, friendship, and devotion, about figuring out how we fit in (or don't), and about the unexpected friends who help us find our truest selves. Or has she just been hiding? Disarming, delightfully deadpan, and full of searching, Claire Luchette's Agatha of Little Neon offers a view into the lives of women and the choices they make. Who will she be if she isn't with her sisters? These women, the church, have been her home. Agatha is forced to venture out into the world alone to teach math at a local all-girls high school, where for the first time in years she has to reckon all on her own with what she sees and feels. They take over the care of a halfway house, where they live alongside their charges, such as the jawless Tim Gary and the headstrong Lawnmower Jill. But when the parish goes broke, the sisters are forced to move. The four of them are devoted to Mother Roberta and to their quiet, purposeful life.

AGATHA HAS LIVED EVERY DAY OF THE LAST nine years with her sisters: they work together, laugh together, pray together.

Agatha and the little neon