The Impossible Why

What if the Person You Love the Most, Is the One Who Hurts You the Most?

Sixteen-year-old June Taylor, raised Jehovah's Witness, homeschools in the Arkansas countryside. Her mother's moods and rages keep the whole family doing The Eggshell Walk. June finds solace and sanctuary in her clapping tree, her work as a McDonald's cashier, and with Grits, the neighbor's sweet yellow lab. June's world explodes when she accepts a forbidden date and her mother leaves. June is willing to sacrifice it all to win her mother back. But when June meets Keegan, a young man from a different faith, she will be forced to question everything she holds dear-including loyalty to her mother.

Summer Hammond grew up in the rural Midwest and Ozarks, one of Jehovah's Witnesses. After parting ways with the faith, she went on to earn her BA in Literature and teach ninth grade reading. Summer earned her MFA in Fiction from the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. Her fiction has been recognized as a finalist for the Missouri Review Jeffrey E. Smith Editors' Prize, among other honors. She won the 2023 New Letters Conger Beasley Jr. Award for Nonfiction and her work was selected for publication in Best American Essays 2025. Summer lives in Austin, Texas, with her kindred spirit, Aly, and their many books.