MB Caschetta

Memoir in essays · 2022

A Cheerleader’s Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Eleven candid, funny essays trace a life through Catholic girlhood, queer adulthood, AIDS activism, 9/11, family rupture, and long COVID—always searching for meaning amid the wreckage

“I knew Mary Beth Caschetta was a brilliant writer from her Modern Love essay about being disinherited. What I didn’t know until I read her stunning nonfiction collection is that she is also a trailblazing activist ex-cheerleader poodle-loving almost-nun. And those aren’t even spoilers.”

— Augusten Burroughs, author of Running With Scissors and Toil & Trouble

Linked stories · 2016

Pretend I’m Your Friend

Eleven entwined stories lay bare the fear, loss, comedy, and ache of love, sex, friendship, and family life

“I can’t remember when I’ve read a collection so full of life. Actual life: the bad jokes, the astounding velocity, the sweetness and darkness. You will love the characters here the way you love your own family: complicatedly, with tenderness, understanding, and consternation. The only difference may be how willing—and eager—you are to introduce them to friends. Good heavens, this book is good.”

— Elizabeth McCracken, author of Thunderstruck

“A book of youthful verve, humor, melancholy, and desire. It confronts the central mysteries: sexual, familial, and spiritual, with elegance and aplomb.”

— Carole Maso, author of Mother & Child

A novel · 2014

Miracle Girls

In 1973 upstate New York, ten-year-old Cee-Cee Bianco sees angels and missing girls, then finds herself among radical nuns, family secrets, and ordinary evils

“Filled with a kind of dark poetry”

— Kirkus Reviews

“This debut sparkles; Miracle Girls is that rarest thing: a literary miracle. MB Caschetta will break your heart and mend it all at once.”

— Darin Strauss, author of Chang and Eng and Half a Life

“Miracle Girls is a wonderful book I will give to friends.”

— Beverly Donofrio, author of Riding in Cars with Boys

“What MB Caschetta’s novel brilliantly proposes is an underground railroad for girls. It feels like one of those girls grew up and wrote Miracle Girls. I loved reading it and rooting for CeeCee as she struggles to survive her own family and her saintly little girl voyage with the aid of intergenerational healing, and the vintage magic of radical nuns and priests from a time when they worked for peace and helped the lost girls of the world find home.”

— Eileen Myles, author of Chelsea Girls

Short stories · 1996

Lucy on the West Coast

Nine women and girls meet the hazards of late-twentieth-century life—from AIDS and urban decay to faith, desire, and transformation

“A Wonderful New Voice”

— Joan Nestle