Instead, the essay recalls how Beard's collie suffered after a series of strokes and how Beard herself was suffering as her marriage fell apart. The murders come as a weird and unexpected crescendo. Six dead people will eclipse a dying dog and a deceased marriage, but that's not what I intended. Her work evokes the rhythms of life, which is why reading Beard makes you feel you know her. It is, for her, a thing apart.
Some characters are composites.
Beard tweaks at the facts in order to create a larger truth. Inclined even as a child to embellish the facts, Beard is by nature a fiction writer. I wanted to be a fiction writer. I tried to be. I lived in Iowa City and I wanted to go to school.