Fiction | April 16, 2015

Everybody knew her as Gretchen, but that wasn’t her real name. That was just what her brother Tommy called her—had called her one time when they were teenagers—and it had stuck. Gretchen Fetchen is a character in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, which is a book about a bunch of hippies in the ’60s taking acid and traveling around the country being irresponsible. Everybody called her Gretchen. A lot of people didn’t even know what her real name was. Sometimes even she forgot, only for a second, less than a second. But even so. Her real name was Kathleen.

This story is not currently available online.

If you are a student, faculty member, or staff member at an institution whose library subscribes to Project Muse, you can read this piece and the full archives of the Missouri Review for free. Check this list to see if your library is a Project Muse subscriber.

SEE THE ISSUE

SUGGESTED CONTENT