These stories illustrate the paradox that fiction is an opening to truth. Each story brings out the truth of a person, time and place while it also is a devoted search for truth. Through the characters portrayed, the real protagonist that knits life together is a searing hunger for emotional reality, the truth of our being. And as readers, we feel the sharp, undulating realities of emotional life as they reveal truths of a moment, of an individual, of a zeitgeist. The more we can bear, the more we can grow. Merle Molofsky, a psychoanalyst and poet, takes us on adventures with and through the human spirit. Michael Eigen, The Challenge of Being Human These are all extraordinary stories, spanning the range from realistic and socially penetrating commentary to the most philosophically speculative. Emphasis is on strong characterization, bringing out a picture of the essential self, whether in conflict with the imposition of social limitations, conflicting notions of who one is, or the struggle to arrive at personal integrity. Wondrous situations are presented that expand upon the conventionally realistic and seem to draw on aspects of magical realism, science fiction and the psychoanalytic merging of past and present experience in the mind. Lee Jenkins, Right of Passage Necessary Voices are exceptionally necessary for those of us who wish to hear stories of an authentic life. Merle Molofsky has written about people we think we know or knew, with exquisite details of what it means to truly live one's life. Each character is a survivor. They are more than fictional characters. We know them because they are us. They are our necessary, often unspoken and unseen selves. They come to life through Molofsky's poignant and remarkable stories. If you wish to enter the bittersweet existence of another and live the magic and wonder of story, then you must read Necessary Voices. Fanny Brewster, Archetypal Grief: Slavery's Legacy of Intergenerational Child Loss