fiction – Chrys Buckley

Continuing my weekly tour through favorite books of 2025, today we arrive at my favorite genre-bender and overall funnest book:

cover of Who Killed One The Gun? by Gigi Little

Who Killed One the Gun? by Gigi Little
Forest Avenue Press

I don’t know how to talk about this book other than to say, just read it. It’s so good. Several people I know are getting this book as a birthday present in 2026.

So what can I say that doesn’t give too much away? A (self-described) third-rate private eye gets stuck in a time loop after being killed. He has to solve the case he was working on before he died and his own murder.

It’s delicious. It’s funny. And fun. Gigi Little plays with language in delightful ways. It’s quirky in the best, truest way. It plays with a lot of noir tropes and subverts expectations. Every character’s name is a number followed by a rhyme. They all have distinct voices and personas, and are memorable. There’s a lot of old-timey radio in the book, and it is a blast.

It’s a murder mystery. Two murder mysteries in one. Since mystery was one of my earliest genres—I was a Nancy Drew kid—and is the genre I go to in my distraction-seeking listening behaviors, I’m usually good at figuring out whodunit. Sometimes that’s fun because it’s ego-satisfying to be ahead of the game and figure things out and be right. Sometimes it’s not so fun, more boring and obvious.

I won’t say whether I thought both murders were committed by the same person or different people, but I had a strong suspicion on one of the cases and a weak suspicion on the other. The weak suspicion ended up being partially right, and the strong suspicion was dead wrong.

It was so fun to be so wrong!

Again, I don’t want to say anything that would detract from the reading experience by revealing too much beforehand, so just READ THIS BOOK!

Chrys

Image Description: The cover of Who Killed One the Gun? showing a man (One the Gun) dead on a clock spiral and featuring blurbs by Mo Davies and Lidia Yuknavitch.

Reading and Book Reviews

Favorite Literary Fiction – My Year in Books 2025

January 11, 2026January 12, 2026 Chrys Buckley

As promised in this Year in Books 2025 overview post, I’ll be going into a bit more detail on each of my favorite reads of 2025 on Sundays. For the first installment, I give you my favorite lit fic novel that I read in 2025.

And the winner is…

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

This book was recommended to me by my instructor for my final book design course. Throughout the term, I’d gotten to know that our tastes were pretty similar in that we both loved Tana French and Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods. So I was already tuned to Elaine’s recommendations. Plus, I’d already read one of Rebecca Makkai’s books, I Have Some Questions For You, and loved it. So I put a library hold on The Great Believers.

The library hold came through right as my spring term was ending, and after a slow start from post-term exhaustion, I devoured this book in two days. I couldn’t put it down. There are two parallel timelines and two main characters: Yale in the mid-1980s and Fiona thirty years later. Both timelines explore the impact of the AIDS epidemic on one close-knit group of friends and their families. Oh, and there’s really cool art shit in there, too. The interweaving of so many different threads is done in a way that feels both cohesive and seamless.

In my particular circles, I would highly recommend this book to narrative medicine folks for the illness aspect and how humanly it’s portrayed. That’s what sets this book apart: how real the characters feel, full and alive and struggling and flawed, complex and messy. I loved living in their world, even when it was heartbreaking.

~Chrys

Music, Writing

Writing, Music and the Places Where they Overlap

April 13, 2014June 27, 2024 Chrys Buckley

So many things have me revisiting my musical past as of late. It’s really kind of odd how so many things converged at once. Sometimes I feel like, for whatever reason, I just really let music slip away for awhile, and over the last month, a switch has flipped and all of a sudden, I’m back.

I think I’m a little too embarrassed to admit one of the things that started all this. I’ll just say this: it was a TV show. And it wasn’t that I loved the music on the show so much as one of the characters reminded me of how I used to feel about music, and that got me listening to CDs again, and trying to rebuild my old music collection by buying a bunch of used CDs, and looking into concerts and shows again. Okay, I’ll give a hint, since it sort of relates to the remainder of the post, this TV show I don’t quite want to name is named after a song.

Continue reading “Writing, Music and the Places Where they Overlap” →

Samples, Writing

Crowdsurfing (Reprise) – Sour Milk 13

February 14, 2014June 27, 2024 Chrys Buckley

To start this story from the beginning, click here.

“I miss just how it feels to wish for someone to call, you know? I miss how special it would make me feel every time a guy I liked talked to me. I can’t really explain the feeling. It’s kinda just like how great it would be every time Andy and I would kid around and play practical jokes on each other, even the times when all those girls came to see him at work. That hurt, but I don’t know, I just feel like I don’t feel anything deeply anymore. My life is just like a dull ache or something. I need some of…something.”

“I have an idea,” Steve says. He looks at me and it suddenly flashes in my mind, exactly what he’s thinking.

“The bushes?” I ask. He nods. I get the CD player going, Steve double checks that Mom and Dad’s car isn’t in the driveway. We hold hands. It’s all about the euphoria of the music.

~~~

And there you have it. The End.

~Chrys

Next Week: Something Completely Different.

Samples, Writing

Sour Milk – Sour Milk 12

February 7, 2014June 27, 2024 Chrys Buckley

To start this story from the beginning, click here.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Everything’s turned to sour milk, it seems. Everything used to have a shine that has somehow disappeared. I mean, look how I used to whine about how no one would ever date me, almost every day of ninth grade.”

“Even though you knew that wasn’t true.”

“Well I believed it at the time. But now, now that I’ve been in a few relationships and found out that they’re not all they’re cracked up to be, I feel like I’m too jaded to even believe in love anymore.” I return to the couch and slouch down, hiding my face.

“That’s sad. But I see what you’re saying. Once I caught my girlfriend cheating on me, I just, well I felt like something died inside of me. I never really thought of it the way you described, but I haven’t even flirted with anyone ever since. Wow.”

“Wow is right,” I say, laughing. “I remember when that whole group of girls used to bug me every day to find out who you liked. They were each convinced they were your one and only because you flirted so much with all of ’em!”

“Yeah.” His smile is wistful. “I miss my girls.”

~~~

You can think of this penultimate installment in this story like the title track of an album.

~Chrys

Next Installment: Crowdsurfing (Reprise)

Samples, Writing

Girl Disappearing – Sour Milk 11

January 31, 2014June 27, 2024 Chrys Buckley

To start this story from the beginning, click here.

“It’s sad, yeah.” I said. “And then, just before graduation, Stacy had to go and run away from home. I don’t understand, she was going to be graduating seventh in our class. She was going to MIT, she had everything going for her. Have you heard from her at all? Has anyone?”

“No, I don’t think anyone has.” He again stares out the window, and I doubt he can see much of anything through the layer of dust. “Please, I really don’t even want to think about that. None of this makes any sense. How did it all go so wrong?”

~~~

This one’s named after a song by one of my faves. We’re almost at the end of this short story from when I was eighteen and thought I knew shit.

Know what I love? When I tried to find an image for this segment, I just wanted the word “MISSING.” So I put that word into google image search and the FIRST thing that popped up was the missing poster for Walter White. Made my day. And that reminds me, I have one of those babies, signed by the man himself, and I should go hang that up or something.

~Chrys

Next Installment: Sour Milk

Samples, Writing

Something Always Changes – Sour Milk 10

January 24, 2014June 27, 2024 Chrys Buckley

To start this story from the beginning, click here.

I remain silent, trying to hold back the tears that are starting to form. Never do I cry in front of my brother. But it’s sad, and there’s nothing I can do about anything anymore except watch the tragedies unfold. I resort to looking at the picture again. I sit behind May with a helpless, forlorn look on my face. I was always looking for attention, I think to myself with disgust. Steve on the other hand, looks unusually happy compared with the rest of the group. His smile looks genuine as he taps the floor with his favorite drumstick. It’s been awhile since he’s smiled like that.

“And even senior year was tough,” Steve continues. “Remember how at the beginning of the year, that girl committed suicide? I didn’t really know her, I don’t suppose anyone did, but it still scared the shit out of me that someone in our senior class, some girl who’d been in one of my math classes, would think to kill herself. I mean, it makes you wonder what goes on inside her head, why she would do, what could be so wrong in her life.”

~~~

Okay, points time! This title comes from a line of dialogue from a TV show that I have blogged about on this very blog. It is from the last episode of the first season. The conversation that contains this line takes place on a roof.

~Chrys

Next Installment: Girl Disappearing

Samples, Writing

The Kids Aren’t All Right – Sour Milk 9

January 17, 2014June 27, 2024 Chrys Buckley

To start this story from the beginning, click here.

“I was on the phone with her almost every night during the whole ordeal. She asked me to come home and help her, and I felt really selfish, but I couldn’t. I had my classes and stuff. Sometimes I hate myself for it, especially now that I haven’t heard from her in awhile. Her dad wanted her to get an abortion and she didn’t want to. Then the guy’s parents forbid him to speak to her or see her. They called her up screaming one night, telling her it was all her fault. I just didn’t know what to do when she called me afterward, what to say. I feel like an idiot trying to help her with this stuff and then worrying about, say, my physics grade.”

“I know how you feel,” Steve says, turning to look out the window. “I felt lost that day when I found out about Brad. I mean, I’ve told him everything since I was ten or so, you know? He was always the little angel child, the one everyone thought could do no wrong. His parents, they always said he was just going through a rough time, acting out they called it. But we all thought, especially me, that deep down he had a heart of gold. I mean, he was so sensitive, so concerned about everyone, even when he pretended not to care. I don’t get it. How could he have gotten mixed in all that? The papers said he was dealing coke.”

~~~

And the story goes on. Another installment from a story I wrote in 1999. Funny, I just realized I’m working on a fiction/non-fiction/hybrid/story/fantasy/clusterfuck right now that centers almost entirely on a conversation, and so does this story.

~Chrys

Next Installment: Something Always Changes

Samples, Writing

You Think You Know Somebody – Sour Milk 8

January 10, 2014June 28, 2024 Chrys Buckley

To start this story from the beginning, click here.

“It has, but there’s more to it. Everything’s become more serious.”

“Tell me about it! I mean, everything was a joke way back when, even when you thought it was important. I mean, would you ever have thought of having to see your friend get arrested for drugs?”

“I still can’t believe that happened. What was it, a week before you left that Brad got busted? We never even knew he was dealing.” Again I studied that subtle defiance he wore on his face. It still didn’t seem real.

“I think it was before that, but whatever, yeah I had no idea and the dude was supposed to be my best friend.”

“And then May got pregnant a few months back. I feel like all I do is worry about her. She got kicked out of her house when she told her dad, did I tell you that?”

“No, I didn’t know that. God, what happened to everyone?”

~~~

More points if you know where I got this title from. It’s a common expression but I specifically got it from an episode title for a TV show. Said episode, from the first season of said show, aired in 2004. Some great shows started that year.

~Chrys

Next Installment: The Kids Aren’t All Right

Samples, Writing

Where Did All the Little Kid Go? – Sour Milk 7

January 3, 2014June 28, 2024 Chrys Buckley

To start this story from the beginning, click here.

“Yeah.” I examine my nails. “Do you ever wonder where all that youthful fun went?”

“It’s been a long year away at college.”

“And a cold winter,” I agree.

I think of things, memories, those wonderfully long summer nights we spent rocking out. I don’t need to see the photo to replay the scene. They started a band, the guys did. Everyone except Steve wanted me to sing for them. Steve hated my voice, which was fine because I hated his drumming even more. So we’d argue, then one of us would tell all the others to shut up. Then we’d plug in all the instruments and crank it up. None of them knew how to play and I certainly couldn’t sing, but it was a complete blast. Of course my parents didn’t always enjoy the ambush of sludge, but that didn’t bother us any.

“Is it me, or has everything changed?” he asks quietly, breaking the silence of our thoughts.

~~~

Bonus points if you know where this title comes from. The album is from 1994. A previous album from the same band had a (fictional, presumably) story about a girl poisoning her parents to get to a show. Or something like that.

~Chrys

Next Installment: You Think You Know Somebody