A problem with circles is that they can be traps. Acupuncture, yoga, LSD, past-life regressions, pole dancing, psychic surgery, “special tea”: these are just some of the therapies sampled by the titular women’s group in Coco Picard’s debut novel, The Healing Circle. Mother, the book’s central figure, is the only participant who has a real stake in the outcome of these experiments, having cycled in and out of remission from cancer for fifteen years. As she reckons with the specter of death, circles—her friends and family, her recurring physical travails, but also looped layers of intergenerational trauma—suspend her in a dizzying brew of uncertainty and disappointment.