A note from Justine Tal Goldberg, author of Swear.

“I conceived of “Swear” during one of the strangest weekends of my adult life. An old friend of mine was killed in a motorcycle accident and I, along with two hundred of his closest friends, returned home for the funeral. There was just something incredibly wild, disarming, and finally traumatizing about the whole experience. Home was not home. Friends were not friends. I felt an overwhelming sense of distance, dislocation. Much like the narrator of “Swear,” I found myself going through the motions, ridiculous and exposed.

At first, this piece was about Brian, my friend who died. Then it was about Mike. (Mike does in fact exist, but he is nothing much like the character that shares his name.) Then it was about me. Then it wasn’t about any of us. “Swear” is about that feeling of being sorry for who you are, of wanting to apologize for the person you’ve become. And maybe that person isn’t so bad, just unrecognizable as the girl she’d been.”

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