Pew

In an unnamed American town, a mysterious, silent figure is discovered sleeping in a church pew one Sunday morning. Neither male nor female, young nor old, and of indeterminate race, this amnesiac individual – whom the congregants christen "Pew" – embodies an enigma that shatters the town's comfortable certainties. As the community grapples with the inability to categorize Pew, their initial curiosity devolves into suspicion and fear. Is Pew an innocent victim, an orphan in need of care, or something far more sinister? The town's struggle to answer these fundamental questions about identity and belonging exposes its own hidden prejudices, anxieties, and moral hypocrisies. Pew's unwavering silence acts as a mirror, reflecting the inhabitants' deepest fears about the 'other' and their own fractured society. Catherine Lacey crafts a haunting and provocative fable that dissects the boundaries we erect, both physical and psychological, and the profound discomfort that arises when those boundaries are blurred.