Mice 1961

by Stacey Levine

FINALIST, 2025 PULITZER PRIZE IN FICTION
RECIPIENT, 2025 AMERICAN BOOK AWARD

Stacey Levine's most recent novel recounts a pivotal day in the fraught relationship of two orphaned sisters through the eyes of their obsessively observant housekeeper, Girtle. Will Jody be able to cope if her younger sibling Mice, subject to constant harassment in their community for her unusual appearance and habits, leaves home? How will their all-watching companion convey her fierce attachment to them both? As a Greek chorus of local characters cavort and joke their way through a neighborhood party, the sisters and their ardent admirer cross paths with an unsettling stranger--leading to momentous changes for all.

Set in southern Florida at the peak of Cold War hysteria, Mice 1961 is a powerful meditation on belonging and separateness, conformity and otherness.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literature, Family, Novels, Book Club, Historical

259 pages, Paperback

First published March 19, 2024

About the author

Stacey Levine is the author of Pulitzer Prize Finalist Mice 1961. Her other books--The Girl with Brown Fur, Frances Johnson, Dra---, and My Horse and Other Stories, have a devoted following of readers.

Levine's work has garnered a Pulitzer Prize fiction finalist nomination, a PEN fiction award, and Stranger Genius Award in Literature. Her fiction has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Fence, The Iowa Review, Yeti, The Fairy Tale Review, Your Impossible Voice, Golden Handcuffs Review, and other venues.

www.staceylevine.com

Reviews

[S̶e̶a̶n̶]

Today is the long-awaited publication day for this remarkable new novel by the inimitable Stacey Levine. You're unlikely to read anything like it, either this year or possibly ever. So, prepare to climb into a time machine back to the year 1961 and an eccentric small town in southern Florida where every passing moment feels monumental. Don't sleep on this one, folks.

[Mallory Drazin]

Flannery O’Connor on shrooms.

[Julene]

Mice 1961, a novel by Stacey Levine, might be called a coming of age story for a girl with the nickname Mice. Her and her half sister Jody are alone, their mother, Candy, died. Mice, original name Ivy, was called Ice by her sister who couldn't pronounce Ivy, which became Mice, is albino. Levine creates a world. Mice spends her time making radios and sneaking out running through the town in Florida. One day Gertle sees them and invites herself to join them as a helper, she sleeps on a pallet behind their couch. She too is a lurker and hider, like Mice who is pursued and harassed by the local teens, to find secret places to slip into and escape.

This is a novel about hiding in this sense of how much disappearance happens. Mice slowly begins to speak up for herself, to the teens, to the neighbor, who is also obsessed by radios and monitoring the situation with Cuba. It's the time of the Cold war. Gertle is the narrator of the book. She never had a home till now and we learn she escaped a home that was probably a place for orphans. She makes constant comments similar to this, " ...I envied all neighbors even while the soon-to-intrude helper gnawed constantly at my mind, for, likely very quickly, he would wipe out my spot in the story."

We're carried into these lives through the book with all leading to a party where all the neighborhood shows up. Will the intruder/helper show up? Will Mice follow her sister's desires to get a job at the bookmobile?

The language and the names in this novel are terrific. If you like quirky stories this is a definite book you’ll want to read.

[Nate D]

Stacey Levine's three novels (with this after a two decade gap!) trace the machinations of the thinnest forms of genre romance fiction. Here, in story that unfolds mainly in one extended, chaotic party scene with dozens of characters, this comes mostly through the narrator's obsession with what she sees as the inevitabilities of narrative, particularly that a romantic interest must eventually impose itself on the central relationship. The narrator is a memorable construction, barely a character at all (often narrating unseen from behind the couch or under drain spouts to avoid taking part in the action) yet intrusive to extremes, not only by imposing her interpretations and desires on all that unfolds, but constantly monitoring a barely glimpsed extra who she's sure controls the outcome of the plot, no, the book, the book she seems to know she is in. Thoroughly peculiar, caught up in bizarre incidental conversation. A bit like Mauve Desert unfolding at Gerald's Party, mostly less overtly postmodern until you're walloped with something like this:

It's hard to know what a book is. Inside, a slender span of clock time is stored incognito. The book sits among others on the shelf for decades until its pages grow sclerotic, unable to turn; its relevance fades. Its story might manage to slide into the next book on the shelf and commune with this new book. Life contains many more surprising liberations than this. Out of that mingling, a new story arises, holding more joy than the first. Its afterword glows.

[T]

I feel like this book was written by someone from another planet. The prose is the right amount of weird to be original, the premise is fantastic, and white-haired inquisitive Mice is irritating even when confined to the book’s pages. But the characters are too many and the dialogue is nonsensical and the most interesting elements of the story are teased and dropped without a second thought.

[manasa k]

oh luv! the suffocation of small towns and the encroaching nature of reality seeping into neighborhood gossip felt very salient to read about in my childhood bedroom. all roads lead back to pirate radio for me. also ridiculously funny some of the best use of italics i've ever read.

[carey]

one million out of 5

[cycads and ferns]

"Then I'll meet you at the party," I said simply, standing, adding casually, as if suddenly remembering, "Oh and Mice…You know —the signal?"
She looked up at me. "What signal?"
"Oh Mice!" I hissed. "You were supposed to leave the range on so I'd know if you were going to the cottage with me. And you like the dark? Well the cottage is dark. Why not go there with me? Come on!"
"Why?"
"So we can sit in chairs for so long that maybe we'll go out somehow and not be what we are. Don't you want to try?"

[Steven]

tl;dr Levine's Mice 1961 is a disorientingly off-kilter domestic comedy, where a profound fear of the unknown is embodied by a monstrous Greek chorus of neighbors

Sometimes neighbors spoke my most atrocious thoughts precisely (69).

"Someone new in town" is itself a plot, but Stacey Levine's wonderfully disorienting Mice 1961 positions outsiders, newcomers, strangers, overwhelmingly at the fore, often to the point of not knowing who belongs and who's playing along. Over the course of a single fateful day, our outcast narrator observes outcast orphan half-sisters, Jody and Mice, trying to negotiate a life at the margins of acceptability.

I anticipated this novel to be far more challenging or alienating to the reader, but in actuality, the built-in pathos of the outcast made things easier to empathize with. Stacey Levine writes with considerable linguistic flair and flourish, and the temporal framing of the narration can make finding footing tricky, but not once did I feel like I was meeting a smug, impenetrable challenge (not that such books aren't satisfying nor fun to read). Rather, I felt impelled to understand the bizarreness; when confused, to face it; to trust that our narrator would find some truth in this off-kilter tale.

That said, at no point did what I thought might happen happen. It's wasn't a matter of subverting expectations -- my expectations were basically paragraph to paragraph, if not line to line. It was more just observing, with unfettered anticipation and a strange delight, what the fuck one of Levine's characters was going to say or do next. I wasn't sold, at first, on this being comedic. I was rather disturbed at first by the reveal of the narrator. But by the third act, which is not just funny but bordering raucous, I was fully on board with laughter.

But the laughter didn't mean I cared any less about the characters' plight. Levine's performance as the novelist is both unhinged and deeply measured, doling out droll domestic absurdity with equal parts cringe and glee. Most of the scenes towards the latter third of the book are little scenes of stupid domestic discourse, like Shirley Jackson and Diane Williams walked into a bar. In fact, Diane Williams is the closest comparison I can make here; the uncanny pleasure of reading Mice 1961 is what I imagine a Diane Williams story drawn out to a full-length novel might feel like: unpredictable from moment to moment, zoomed-in details forming a mountain range of molehills, and so so so many delightfully named characters.

So many names (I think over 20 named characters!) flash by that roll off the tongue and onto the ear with hooky, quirky, "can't-quite-place-it-but-that-feels-right" 60s-era specificity. But the conglomerate effect of all these names is central to the mood of the book, which is that all these people, these individuals forming a collective, are potentially against you. Mice is an outcast because of both her appearance and behavior, and we get to hear, via our chronically eavesdropping narrator, what each has to say about her. They form almost a monstrous Greek chorus; our narrator often refers to them as "neighbors", sans article, lending them the air of a vague collective threat.

At the wall and behind the rose-colored sofa, I strained to hear the hostess’s warm voice as she spoke a long run of breathy words against Jody’s hair and shoulder—but amid the Pink Room guests’ noise, I couldn’t hear.
So I had to admit: not every word in the story was mine to know. (144)

Observation and surveillance are key elements throughout the story (e.g. our narrator's constant watching, Mice's affinity for radios and listening), and add to the Cold War paranoia of the time. After all, with all this watching and observing and surveilling, the optionally is the need to report all these findings. The dizzy reportage of Mice 1961 only adds to the slipperiness of truth and memory.

Much of the story is devoted to chasing Mice (a literal Mice chase), but Mice is quick, nimble, easily able to hide. This is the same feeling I had trying to track down what Levine is saying with this novel. When the facts of the story elude me, what I can report is the feeling. In the case of Mice: somber empathy for the outcast, ridiculous hilarity at the domestic, and a void-black fear of the unknown, for all involved.

So neighbors had no idea of what they saw versus what they didn’t see. (38)

[Chris Scott]

What a strange and wonderful novel. I can honestly only think of maybe one or two friends I'd feel comfortable recommending this to. Reading it was so odd and almost exhilarating. Surprisingly it also has some of the funniest passages I've read in years (one particular stretch during the chaotic potluck supper midway through had tears streaming down my face for like ten full minutes.) I'm glad you exist, Mice 1961.

[Sherron Wahrheit]

Set in 1961 Miami with three main characters. Two sisters on the cusp of adulthood are dealing with the recent death of their mother. Instead of branching out to make their way in the world, they are alternatingly grasping each other and then pushing away. The younger sister is nicknamed Mice, afflicted by a number of ailments including albinism; she is incessantly picked on by the town’s flock of teenage girls. She’s taken care of by her barely older sister who also can barely cope.

And then there is the narrator. Whew-eee! She’s a well-read new-comer to town, and the oddest, poor thing. A life-long loner, an orphanage runaway at sixteen, and now at least in her twenties or maybe thirties. She dislikes participating but loves to watch, hidden behind a couch, among buses, or behind a curtain. Always watching from a distance, you’d think she’d be a natural reporter. Disjointed, hallucinogenic—to the extreme of paranoia—the narrator is like a wobbly fresh mozzarella, balanced on a precipitous wire cheese cutter that she herself holds.

This writing is NOT for everyone. People who want to come away refreshed and full of new quotes and wisdom should stay away. I’m still wondering what it is I just read. I think mebbe instead I had just been staring at a Jackson Pollack. How to decide how many stars when it’s so unique and avant gard? Even though I didn’t understand every single word, I certainly appreciate it more than if I had grokked every single bit. While very, ah, different, it seems in good company with traditional southern gothic.

[Max]

I see people are calling the book weird, absurdist, etc, but this is basically exactly what I imagine 1960s Miami suburbs were like.

[Lydia]

Stacey Levine is a wizard of language. Her prose is familiar but altered, like a dialect from an alternate universe, where you can’t quite pinpoint the skew, but it’s there nevertheless. Mice 1961 isn’t fancy or lyrical. It’s not going to mystify you with plot twists and dazzle you with descriptions, but if you’re looking for the kind of reading experience where you are staring into your own face in the mirror and wondering if you’ve ever actually met yourself before, or if you’ve been replaced by an exact duplicate, well here it is.

Stacey Levine is a wizard of control, of restraint, of epic smallness, and the ordinary weird. She examines straight seams and neatly parted hair and flat sidewalks, and comes up with beasts and dark diseases. This book belongs on the shelf beside Notable American Women by Ben Marcus and Irva and Alva, the Twins that Saved a City by Edward Carey, or maybe Ida by Gertrude Stein. If you don’t know those writers, then it’s likely that Mice 1961 is unlike any book you have ever read. And you might hate it.

Mice 1961 can be summarized as a day in the life of two orphaned sisters in Cold War era Florida. The older sister is anxious, and one younger one is bullied for her albinism. There is a beginning, middle, and end to the story, but there is also an exhaustingly chaotic and relentlessly slow and detailed description of a neighborhood potluck: who’s there, what they’re like, what they say to each other, what they’re eating. The book is almost unendurably flat and mundane, but in spite of this, maybe because of this, Levine’s hand on the rudder is operating with white-knuckle intensity. This is because there is a third character, the shadowy narrator, who is controlling and examining the story, operating the mechanics of it, obsessively observing it, and worrying about it. She exists in the tale, like some kind of understairs Nick Carraway or aggressively hairsprayed Lockwood, but her power over it and her place in it are constantly challenged by the characters, and put in flux by her own desires to float or intervene. Weird. Interesting.

I have been devouring Stacey Levine’s work since the 90s when I met her in Chicago. Her short story collection, My Horse and Other Stories, is on my top shelf with The Intuitionist and Geek Love and Observatory Mansions, all books that clear the path, then tap on your forehead and let you know what’s possible. Mice 1961 was originally published by Verse Chorus Press a few years ago, but is being reprinted by Ecco Books (now with an audiobook expertly performed by Jane Oppenheimer) because it was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Wonderful news for all of us lovers of experimental forms! I hope it finds many more readers, because I want Stacey Levine to write many more books. I will always read them, and puzzle over them, wrestle with them. They never fail to surprise me.

[Reisse Myy]

This quietly bombastic gem plumbs the architecture of storytelling itself, somehow melding a Greek chorus, spy thrillers, Jell-o recipes, and Florida Gothic into a mystifyingly delicious work of literary fiction about omnipresent Cold War tensions that resonate all too deeply in 2026.

A truly brilliant study of the uncanny, and of meaning-making at large. Mesmeric, unsettling, and distinctive, this feels like a sleeper hit in the weird-girl canon. Going in blind to its plot maximizes both the wonder and the claustrophobia.

[William Hudders]

Well how can you give this book just a paltry ridiculous five stars? It seems so limited. Why not little purple squirrels or soaking empty dishpans? And why only yellow stars? What is this kindergarten forever? Why not an option for fifty stars? Twenty orange stars and then ten deep blue water glasses and then twenty soft yellow pants-suits thrown down onto an orange wooden floor.

Many people will say this was written by Jane Bowles' strange but more soft spoken cousin living outside Miami with her skinny blonde albino sisters and I could not disagree.
I think it all rhymes somehow indirectly, but I can't prove it.
Long Live Mice!

[Lawrence Jacobson]

Perfect for book groups. (Mine loved it.) Entertaining (and less somber than the above blurb suggests), with a singular point of view and sense of humor, but also the depth and insight to lead to any number of fascinating conversations. A wonderful read!

[Howard]

The only reason I know of this book's existence is for its recent (and surprise) Pulitzer Prize for Fiction citation. It's genuinely exciting when a new (to me) authorial voice instantly commands relevant critical attention. I immediately grabbed the ONE copy that my state's library system had as soon as I could place the hold. It's one of the most peculiar novels I've ever read, and I couldn't get past the artificiality of everything I was reading that drew needless attention to itself on every page. Unnecessary rhetorical devices ("the story's helper"), odd language juxtapositions, languid plot pacing, structureless story, vague descriptors, heightened tonality, etc. I could relish in the Cold War-era paranoia of it all, but the tale of two, alienated half-sisters at odds with each another after the tragic passing of their mother in 1961 Miami is a very flimsy premise for a novel. Standing between them is the oddest character of all, a housekeeper and escaped state ward patient named Girtle who relates the story with a fixed, all-knowing obsession regarding the sisters, seemingly able to hide practically anywhere without being seen by others (because she's so insignificant) and conveniently omniscient (analyzing the tale from old age as an unreliable narrator). I didn't necessarily need a happy ending for Jody and Mice (a childhood nickname that sadly stuck; real name Ivy), but this might have been the first time where an author's odd fixations and specific worldview altered my enjoyment of the writing to such a significant degree that I considered not finishing it. "Mice" is endlessly bullied by the local high-school children for her disabilities: albinism and what surely sounds like (but wouldn't have been properly diagnosed back then) autism. The novel fetishizes otherness and condescends to the reader at every turn. I was infuriated at the relentless taunting Mice received, knowing that this era's antiquated attitudes on gender, race, mental illness, and the like would greatly annoy my modern sensibilities in both its narrowmindedness and cruelty. I hate to be made to feel above the characters I'm reading, as if the author has zero empathy for them whatsoever. (The DSM didn't even remove homosexuality as a mental disorder until 1974.) Jody is a shrill, antagonistic mouthpiece for the novel's nagging sense of dread and anxiety. Mice is so off-putting and annoying in general. Way too many characters to keep track of at a "spring party" that the main characters reference for over a hundred pages, only for the actual party to delve into a showcase of town oddities spouting random grievances, decade-specific pop minutiae, and a growing suspicion over the Bay of Pigs invasion. The dynamic between the three women instantly reminded me of Rebecca, only sisters instead of a husband and new wife; dead mother instead of dead first wife; and a docile, more idiosyncratic version of Mrs. Danvers. The fact that this disappointing book was positioned by an agenda-setting, activist Fiction jury to possibly WIN the Pulitzer over James would have been a literary scandal for the ages that this storied award might have never fully recovered from. Glad that the Board said, "Not today, Satan!" and chose the rightful winner. Weak, yet inevitable conclusion. The cover image has absolutely nothing to do with the contents of the novel itself. It's a stock image from a 1961/62 short film called Strop by Věra Chytilová. After reading a brief synopsis of that work, it's clear that Girtle was heavily influenced by the character of Marta, and I'd much rather seen that film than read this novel. I hoped to gain at least some needed insight into what I just experienced, since there are no significant reviews to read beyond a pay-walled Washington Post entry by author Lydia Millet. I still would have hoped for a better and more meaningful cover. I've never heard of Verse Chorus Press either, but I wouldn't mind discovering more of their output in the future. But this author? Maybe a reread is merited, or not.

[Corey Davis]

it's absurd, on purpose. it's cryptic, on purpose. it's pretty much plotless, on purpose. i just can't for the life of me figure out what that purpose is supposed to be. these elements (in addition to an overarching metafictional framework) understandably make this book difficult to market, but i really think the given synopsis is suckering innocent bystanders into a reading experience much more atmospheric and confounding than they're prepared for. pockets of whimsy and intrigue do exist here, but it's mostly just insufferable characters talking in circles about nothing in particular. it's literally ALL vibes...except the vibes are the kind that guarantee you a tension headache.

[oldgradstudent]

A dazzling, dizzying, and delightful contemporary novel of manners. Levine takes a complex look at two sisters who spend a good amount of time at a party. Many voices and an unusual narrator. I believe that I will be trying to figure out what it all means for weeks.

[Richard Anderson]

Strange, otherworldly study of sisterly love.

[William]

Lot of fun. Amazing pace. Reminded me of Coover, the cartoon cast of characters.

[Patricia Bidar]

Best and most delightful book I've read in ages. I'd give it more stars if I could. A true original.

[Mariana Osório de castro]

Quite entertaining in all its insanity. Some truly deranged moments, like a several page audit of a salad brought to the town pot-luck featuring remarks such as “this salad has mistakes, first of all it’s wet” and “that’s enough today in terms of spinach”. The goofy humorous tone also brings us insightful tidbits that I enjoyed, such as “sugar is famous for memorialising the past” when discussing preserves.

Had a hard time understanding the role of the narrator and the relevance of her own relationship to the sisters, and left not really knowing what to take away from the novel.

Overall, a fun read around a kooky party, almost surrealist in a mad-hatter tea party way.

[Alexa]

Really smart, perfectly captures the feeling of dread that seeps into every mundane interaction as you're trying to live your life, minute-to-minute, in a world that could be brought to apocalypse at any moment. I was born in the 90s so this should be taken with a grain of salt, but it really felt like this exact point in time (1961 and Cold War terror) was captured perfectly. This terror also unfortunately reverberates through to our current timeline, even for someone like me who has never known a time before the bomb. I have to be honest that I started to skim at the end. I was invested too much in Mice, and when we didn't hear from her for a large portion of the middle of the text I lost focus. I found that I didn't care about what I should have cared more about: the specific makeup of the neighborhood and community. It feels like that's what this is about: the quirks and specificities of being inside a community, even when the world is ending.

[Robert Morgan Fisher]

Echoes of Beckett, Coover and Donald Antrim. Also Flannery O'Connor. I lived briefly in Florida as an infant and it's always been my least-favorite state. A novel set there in 1961 is, on one level, my idea of hell, but Levine's technique of using a POV that is part writer and discussing the plot in craft terms is cool. Also her use of language, the way she often caps a section or paragraph with a neo-poetic reflection, getting adventurous with similes and metaphors. I like that kind of writing. This unusual and something of a watershed novel for Stacey Levine, whose short stories I am very familiar with.

[Kevin Keller]

Abandoned halfway through. Just becomes a lot of annoying people saying non sequiturs to each other. Maybe it’s a clever depiction of a very strange narrator? Not invested enough to care.

[Patrick Tierney]

4.5 up. Wow, what an experience. I was enthralled by the prose and the fast moving dialogue. There might have been a hundred characters, impossible to keep straight, but somehow it didn’t matter. I can’t believe that this Pulitzer finalist is so lightly reviewed. Not for everyone, but definitely for me and I’ll check out her other books the year ahead.

[Chanel Baron]

A strange post modern read. Interesting. I enjoyed this quote:

“I leaned in, wanting to tell her that people can often be kind, mild, and benign, yet I said nothing, for no specific examples came to mind”

[Debbie]

I didn’t dislike it but I think the authors quirkiness was a bit lost on me. It is really inventive and mesmerizing and held my attention. It seemed to have ended abrubptly and I can’t help but wonder if Mice was eaten by a crocodile in the corn field. 🥴

[Peter Chase]

Mice 1961 excels on so many levels.

The characters are wonderful. We see them at their worst, most petty, and we see them at their best, when their caring for each other, their compassion, kicks into gear. After the first long chapter of the book I felt like an observer, judging the characters. Not one seemed good. I feared the book was leading toward a nihilistic, cynical view of the world. By the end, however, I appreciated every one. Fleshed out, they seemed real. Most were neither all good nor all bad, but doing their best. Trying.

The dialogue was stunning. The intensity of emotions in one fight between two sisters, for example, was shocking, and totally believable. The utter pandemonium of a multi-person social event, the chaos of so many people, each with quirks and idiosyncrasies, personal tragedies and agendas, seeming to speak all at once at a party, was spectacular. It seemed so real. Levine captures it like I’ve seen nowhere else. By the end, I was no longer just observing and judging, but rather, immersed. I had joined the crowd.

This book is a challenging read, not an easy bathtub book. But it’s deeply rewarding. And fun.

It’s as if the author is including us in a game she played with character and street names and various mythologies. She created a puzzle for us, a game fun to play, but also a game which might lead us toward something profound. She created a world in which myths of old live on through us, a world where we become who we are, we achieve fulfillment, in part by finding Our Way to add to the story of humanity, much as the reef was formed by coral, generation after generation, beneath the feet of these characters from Miami.

I loved this book.

SPOILER ALERT: Clues for this (possible) interpretation of Mice 1961.

Mice: Apollo was known as the Lord of mice (https://turkisharchaeonews.net/site/g...). Mouse was a surname of Apollo. “[T]he mouse was considered by the ancients... as the symbol of prophetic power.” (https://pantheon.org/articles/s/smint...)

THE BLUR: The Greek Hermes and Roman Mercury both share traits with The Blur. Hermes was a “God of jokes and journeys, thieves and magicians, the tricky guide of souls” (https://thisjungianlife.com/episode-2... he was a prankster (https://www.igreekmythology.com/herme...). In this book, The Blur wears heavy framed glasses which hold no lenses. Upon arriving at the party, he exclaims, “Here’s my potluck dish. Gelatin…. It’s flavorless,” boasted The Blur…. “See? This dessert is gray…. The Blur might’ve grinned, but it was hard to tell, for, all nerves, he danced around, then sped off, stopping short for a moment, as if unable to decide where to go.” (Kindle page 103)

Hermes and Mercury were often depicted with winged sandals, representing speed and swift movement (https://greek.mythologyworldwide.com/...). The Blur was, well, the Blur; he was always moving, rushing, as on Kindle page 103, above, and Kindle page 44 where he seemed to materialize on the sidewalk with a “blast of spring wind”.

HOUSEMATES: The Fates, in Greek mythology, are three sister gods (https://greek.mythologyworldwide.com/...

A. The Spinner of Life: Responsible for spinning the thread that represents an individual’s life. On Kindle Page 60, a loose thread appears on Girtle’s blouse. This fascinates Mice. Does Girtle play the role of the Spinner of Life?

B. The Allotter of Destiny: The middle sister’s role is to measure the length of the thread spun by the Spinner of life. Again, as referenced above, Mice is mesmerized by the string on the Girtle’s (the spinner’s?) blouse. She bends her mouth to the string and eats it. On its own, in the “real” world, a reader might find this act odd. It may seem more reasonable, however, if her character is seen both as human, a normal resident of Reef Way, Miami, and simultaneously personifying the ancient story of one of the sisters, the Fates. Eating the string, measuring the thread from the Spinner of Life, gives Mice new confidence. She stands up to Girtle, who is attempting to keep her from leaving the apartment, telling her “sometimes rules change” (K pg. 60). A few pages later, on Kindle page 64, Girtle reports that Mice “ate the string and got stronger. I saw it happen.”

C. The Cutter of Life: The eldest sister is “the most final of the three, as she is responsible for cutting the thread of life, thus bringing an end to an individual’s existence.” (from mythologyworldwide.com, after Housemates, above.) On Kindle page 84, Jodi claims to “take refuge in it… in death’s absoluteness. It’s a force we should admire.” On Kindle page 114, Girtle observes “Jodi’s intensity, severity, and downturning mouth” which made her “believe that she might, in her mind’s eye, be foreseeing her own death.” At Kindle page 219, three of Jodi’s friends rush upstairs toward her, “their six feet battering the wood”, in a panic, as if afraid Jodi might be contemplating suicide (Their concern began on Kindle pg. 217)

BOATSMANN: Throughout the novel, people express concern for a dog, missing from the neighborhood. At the novel’s conclusion (Kindle page 227), the dog returns, and recognizes and runs toward Gertle. Its name is Boatsmann.

A. Boatsman of the Underworld: An article titled “The Boatsman of the Underworld in Greek Mythology” describes “Charon, the ferryman of the dead… a guide for souls—who transports the deceased from the world of the living to the world of the dead.” [World History EDU, Oct. 29, 2024 https://worldhistoryedu.com/charon-th...]

B. Anubis the Canine: Plays a role similar to that of the Greek Boatman in religions of Ancient Egypt. Anubis “is depicted as a black canine, a jackal-dog hybrid with pointed ears, or as a muscular man with the head of a jackal…. The powerful black canine… was the protector of the dead who made sure they received their due rights in burial and stood by them in the life after death to assist their resurrection.” [World History Encyclopedia https://www.worldhistory.org/Anubis/]

DEATH, OR HAPPY ENDING?: As the conclusion of Mice 1961 draws near, there is a strong sense of doom, that someone will die.

A. On K page 227, Girtle was “ …stunned to realize that the story was not separate from life or living, but instead just another side of it. The richness of this spread through my belly, and my body impelled me toward the black-golden dog, no longer missing, who recognized me as part of things, running to me as well, and I embraced him.” This could imply that Girtle accepted imminent death, but for the entire novel being relayed to us in the voice of Girtle, reminiscing, in old age.

B. If Mice, nibbling at the thread, measuring her fate, gained confidence and strength by doing so, presumably she survived traversing the field of corn. Her friends, however, seeking any sight of her amid the light-haired stalks of corn, were clearly concerned.

C. Jodi may have foreseen her own death, as suspected by Girtle (referenced in Housemates C, above), and her companions were clearly concerned by Jodi’s despair as they rushed to help her, possibly fearing suicide (also referenced in Housemates C, above). Could it be Jodi who was destined to be shepherded by the Boatsman?

Here, the author seems to be toying with us. We fear that each, in turn, of the women might be the one to die, before we are led, by the end of the novel, to the realization that such a question is beside the point. It is irrelevant.

It’s tempting to think of fate as determinative, conclusive, unavoidable. But finding The Way is both the challenge and the point of the book; fate is not simple, we have choice, and choice is difficult. Patterns of story might guide us, but each of our stories is our own. We have agency. Perhaps Boatsmann simply was a dog with a fun and peculiar name. Or maybe he was indeed the shepherd of the dead. It doesn’t matter. What is significant in this book is that the three main characters grew, they evolved, they each found Their Way.

Jodi was able to accept the advice and support of friends and lover as she let go of Mice. Mice Found her voice, and the strength to stand up to the suffocating love of her sister and the stifling care of Girtle. She no longer preferred to slink in nooks or hide in crannies, but rather could stand on her own, stand out. Mice developed confidence which affected her behavior such that she could be noticed, seen and appreciated by others — to the point of being offered employment both by the Librarian and the Bay-of-Pigs villain. Girtle found acceptance, the sense of belonging for which she yearned, in the embrace of community and the cuddling of the dog. She, too, had shed her anonymity, no longer hiding in shadows. She found in herself the strength to fight to save her friend.

The growth, the evolution of each character, is the happy ending of this novel. Wondering whether one or another might then have perished was, in my view, the author having a bit of fun, teasing us. It was a diversion. Each character had found Her Way. This was the truly happy ending, the lesson of Mice 1961, which could not be diminished, not even by a journey with the Boatsman.