There’s a house on the edge of the property, but a thicket of trees seals us off. The church sits on a hill overlooking the highway and blue-pink-purple sky, with the steeple cross overlooking us. Someday we’re supposed to submit to them, but not now.
We don’t dress for them or take pictures for them or worry about what they’re thinking. We girls grow our hair long and insouciant like horsetails. We run with our palms out, and the grass can’t decide whether to brush or scratch us. The grass is long and budding with feathers of golden seeds. Either way, it’s summer, Wednesday evening Bible study is over, and we’re running out of the church building into the untended field. It’s summer and Jesus loves and hates us. Prayers and communion crackers are still on our lips. From BECAUSE WE WERE CHRISTIAN GIRLS “RUNNING” This is a debut short fiction chapbook you won’t soon forget. In prose alternately lyrical and humorous, and through stories sometimes dwelling in poignant realism and at others in the surreal, Townsend’s girls navigate child abuse, body image issues, sexual curiosity and homophobia, addiction, racism, and classism on their paths to self-actualization and, ultimately, freedom. Eventually we go to hell, where we fall for eternity in a dark, fiery pit, bound in rough chains that tear and burn our flesh, deprived of any human contact except for listening to the eternal screams of other Christian girls who are also bound, falling, and should have listened to their elders.” We end up pregnant, kicked out of our churches, and used as examples in sermons about what happens to disobedient Christian girls. In the titular story, Townsend writes, “All Christian girls know what happens when they disobey, even if it’s by accident. Inspired by Virgie Townsend’s own experiences growing up in an independent fundamental Baptist church, the seven stories in Because We Were Christian Girls examine religious and gender oppression through an unforgettable cast of Christian fundamentalist girls. A finalist for the Fall 2019 Black Lawrence Press Black River Chapbook Competition, the Cupboard Pamphlet’s 2020 Annual Contest, and the 2021 Newfound Prose Prize.
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