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It was only when I was a senior in high school that I first met a religious sister. LUCHETTE: I was educated by a single nun. That's about it, can I know more? Were you, for example, educated by nuns? You've had lots of distinguished fellowships. I know from Chicago - we talked about that before the interview began. I didn't hire a private detective, but I went online to try and discover more about you. But ultimately, the ability to have some fun for herself and, you know, have a little bit of a secret from her sisters is the first of a long string of things that she keeps for herself. And it's a little bit of pleasure, and it's a little bit of fear and a little bit of a risk. It's the first thing that she doesn't share with her sisters in Rhode Island. LUCHETTE: (Laughter) For Agatha, learning to roller skate is the first thing that she keeps to herself. SIMON: And he helps Agatha learn how to skate. He has - I don't want to phrase this incorrectly. SIMON: There's a man in Little Neon, Tim Gary - becomes one of my favorite characters.

So I wanted to test the sisters and see if their faith would enable them to help the marginalized or if it would inhibit them. And I wanted to send them somewhere where their skill set of caring for a baby or a newborn wouldn't translate, somewhere they would be out of their element. When we meet the sisters, they've just spent years running a daycare that's dried up. Suddenly, the people at the center of her life aren't other sisters, but the residents of Little Neon. I made a note of this one - Woonsocket, a tuckered-out town in northern Rhode Island, split down the middle by a river of waste. So many incisive phrases in a book with such great heart. And I think that's what Agatha needs at this time in her life when she's lost her mother and desperately in need of something to anchor her. Sitting in a pew, Agatha can know what to do with herself for an hour. LUCHETTE: I think Agatha finds a place to hide herself for a while. What did she find in the church and the fellowship of religious sisters? SIMON: Early in the book, Agatha says, I was marked by grief. Thanks so much for being with us.ĬLAIRE LUCHETTE: My pleasure. It is a wry, insightful and remarkable debut novel from Claire Luchette, whose work has appeared in Ploughshares, Granta and The Kenyon Review.

And there Agatha finds herself looking at her own self and soul in the world. They're there to try to help people get sober and get a firmer grip on life. Claire Luchette's "Agatha Of Little Neon" is about four Catholic sisters in an order all coming up on 30, who are reassigned to run a halfway house in Woonsocket, R.I., that's painted the color of Mountain Dew and called Little Neon.