He can no longer raise a hand to her” (95). She has grown and grown and grown and now towers over everyone: the women, her brothers, even her father. The top of Durand Laxart’s head just reaches Joan’s shoulder. This year there is no wheel, and the fire takes on a ghostly human form, like a sacrifice. Days after his father’s death, the Dauphin, Charles the seventh declares himself King of France.

Two months later, in October, Charles the sixth passes away. Time passes, “In August four-teen-twenty-two, Henry the fifth, King of England dies. These ‘mock battles’ are Joan’s introduction to war. As the boys gather in the field, Joan is bent-backed over the ground, digging missiles out of the earth with blackened fingernails” (5). Not pebbles but rocks of heft and edges and sharp corners. From this chaos emerges a teenage girl who will turn the tide of battle and lead the French to victory, becoming an unlikely hero whose name will echo across the centuries. To begin this amazing story, “In fourteen-twelve, France is mired in a long losing war against England. She received an MFA from Boston University, where she was a senior teaching fellow and awarded the Florence Engel Randall Fiction Prize.

She has also published in a number of historical fiction anthologies. Chen is the author of Joan: A Novel based on the life of Joan of Arc. I’m Jim McKeown, welcome to Likely Stories, a weekly review of fiction, and poetry.

Joan katherine j chen