The Need
By Helen Phillips
Read by Alex Allwine
Table of Contents
About The Book
***LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN FICTION***
Named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books of All Time
“An extraordinary and dazzlingly original work from one of our most gifted and interesting writers” (Emily St. John Mandel, author of The Glass Hotel). The Need, which finds a mother of two young children grappling with the dualities of motherhood after confronting a masked intruder in her home, is “like nothing you’ve ever read before…in a good way” (People).
When Molly, home alone with her two young children, hears footsteps in the living room, she tries to convince herself it’s the sleep deprivation. She’s been hearing things these days. Startling at loud noises. Imagining the worst-case scenario. It’s what mothers do, she knows.
But then the footsteps come again, and she catches a glimpse of movement.
Suddenly Molly finds herself face-to-face with an intruder who knows far too much about her and her family. As she attempts to protect those she loves most, Molly must also acknowledge her own frailty. Molly slips down an existential rabbit hole where she must confront the dualities of motherhood: the ecstasy and the dread; the languor and the ferocity; the banality and the transcendence as the book hurtles toward a mind-bending conclusion.
In The Need, Helen Phillips has created a subversive, speculative thriller that comes to life through blazing, arresting prose and gorgeous, haunting imagery. “Brilliant” (Entertainment Weekly), “grotesque and lovely” (The New York Times Book Review, Editor’s Choice), and “wildly captivating” (O, The Oprah Magazine), The Need is a glorious celebration of the bizarre and beautiful nature of our everyday lives and “showcases an extraordinary writer at her electrifying best” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
Named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books of All Time
“An extraordinary and dazzlingly original work from one of our most gifted and interesting writers” (Emily St. John Mandel, author of The Glass Hotel). The Need, which finds a mother of two young children grappling with the dualities of motherhood after confronting a masked intruder in her home, is “like nothing you’ve ever read before…in a good way” (People).
When Molly, home alone with her two young children, hears footsteps in the living room, she tries to convince herself it’s the sleep deprivation. She’s been hearing things these days. Startling at loud noises. Imagining the worst-case scenario. It’s what mothers do, she knows.
But then the footsteps come again, and she catches a glimpse of movement.
Suddenly Molly finds herself face-to-face with an intruder who knows far too much about her and her family. As she attempts to protect those she loves most, Molly must also acknowledge her own frailty. Molly slips down an existential rabbit hole where she must confront the dualities of motherhood: the ecstasy and the dread; the languor and the ferocity; the banality and the transcendence as the book hurtles toward a mind-bending conclusion.
In The Need, Helen Phillips has created a subversive, speculative thriller that comes to life through blazing, arresting prose and gorgeous, haunting imagery. “Brilliant” (Entertainment Weekly), “grotesque and lovely” (The New York Times Book Review, Editor’s Choice), and “wildly captivating” (O, The Oprah Magazine), The Need is a glorious celebration of the bizarre and beautiful nature of our everyday lives and “showcases an extraordinary writer at her electrifying best” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
Reading Group Guide
Reading Group Guide: The Need by Helen Phillips
When Molly, home alone with her two young children, hears footsteps in the living room, she tries to convince herself it’s the sleep deprivation. She’s been hearing things these days. Startling at loud noises. Imagining the worst-case scenario. It’s what mothers do, she knows.
But then the footsteps come again, and she catches a glimpse of movement.
Suddenly Molly finds herself face-to-face with an intruder who knows far too much about her and her family. As she attempts to protect those she loves most, Molly must also acknowledge her own frailty. She slips down an existential rabbit hole where she must confront the dualities of motherhood: the ecstasy and the dread; the languor and the ferocity; the banality and the transcendence as the book hurtles toward a mind-bending conclusion.
In The Need, Helen Phillips has created a subversive, speculative thriller that comes to life through blazing, arresting prose and gorgeous, haunting imagery. “Brilliant” (Entertainment Weekly), “grotesque and lovely” (The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice), and “wildly captivating” (O, The Oprah Magazine), The Need is a glorious celebration of the bizarre and beautiful nature of our everyday lives and “showcases an extraordinary writer at her electrifying best” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
Discussion Questions:
Were you familiar with paleobotany before reading The Need? What role does this field of study play in the story?
The imagery in the novel, such as the deer mask, is quite surreal. How does this contribute to the overall mood and themes of the book? What other motifs added to the novel’s eerie atmosphere?
The novel has been described as a psychological thriller and a fever dream. How does The Need blend elements of multiple genres like sci-fi, horror, and domestic drama? What genre would you use to describe the novel?
Do you expect parents and non-parents might have differing experiences of reading the novel? Does The Need challenge any preconceived notions about motherhood and identity?
Electric Literature described the novel as “the great American breast pump novel.” How does breastfeeding and other physicalities of motherhood play into the novel?
How did you feel while reading scenes with Ben and Viv? How do they influence the characters’ decision-making processes throughout the novel?
How are the ordinary aspects of daily life juxtaposed with the supernatural elements in The Need?
How do humor and dark comedy take shape in the story? Discuss specific scenes or memorable moments.
The novel explores dualities on many levels, including introducing the possibility of parallel universes. Are you familiar with this concept? Discuss your interpretation of how parallel universes feature in the story.
How does the narrative deal with themes of vulnerability and strength, particularly in Molly’s character?
Consider the following quote: “She and David had a running joke about how they both feared their kids at night the same way that, as children, they’d feared monsters under the bed. Beasts that would rise up from the side of your bed, seize you with sharp nails and demand things of you.” How does fear manifest throughout the novel? Are there moments in the novel that frightened you more than others?
How does Helen Phillips balance the mundane aspects of motherhood, work environments, and marriage with the intense emotions Molly experiences?
What does the ending of the novel imply about the resolution of the story and Molly’s future?
Expand your book club experience:
Discover more about the field of paleobotany! Consider beginning with watching the following interview between Helen Phillips and paleobotanist Dr. Sarah E. Allen, hosted by the Center for Fiction: youtu.be/uTEYEtgXbLk.
Explore more fiction from Helen Phillips, such as The Beautiful Bureaucrat or Hum (check out www.helencphillips.com for more!). What themes do you recognize across her work? How do elements in The Need correspond to elements and characters in her other books?
Discuss other novels, movies, or series that explore the concept of parallel universes. How does the illustration resemble or differ from what Molly experiences in The Need? A few examples to get you started might include Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, Coraline by Neil Gaiman, or Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom by Ted Chiang.
Author Q&A:
Tell us about the inspiration for The Need; how did the story first come together?
When my first child was a few weeks old, I was home alone with her one night. As I was nursing her to sleep, I thought I heard someone walking in the other room of our apartment. I had a flash of terror—what would I do if there was an intruder? I wasn’t even wearing a shirt! I felt extremely vulnerable, and extremely protective of her. There was no intruder in my home, but that feeling stayed with me and was the seed for the opening scenes of The Need.
How did paleobotany come into the writing process or character development for Molly? Did you always know she would be a paleobotanist?
From the beginning, I knew that Molly would have a job that involved excavating the earth, and I knew that she would be uncovering artifacts that didn’t quite make sense. But I wasn’t sure what exactly her profession should be, and I wrote an entire first draft without clarity about that. Then, in a stroke of good fortune, I connected with the daughter of my in-laws’ friends, the paleobotanist Dr. Sarah E. Allen. One night we spoke for a couple of hours about her work, and I knew that this would be Molly’s field, too. I am forever grateful to Dr. Allen for being so generous with her time and her expertise. One of the great pleasures of writing The Need was all that I learned from her about paleobotany.
The novel vividly portrays elements of both realism and speculation, or speculative fiction; how did you balance writing in both styles?
This balance comes very naturally to me. I think surreality swells up into reality all the time. There wasn’t an intruder in my apartment, yet for some seconds I truly believed there was. The human imagination is a powerful thing. Some of the most mundane moments of parenting can suddenly dip into the speculative, like when you’re helping your kid tie their shoe and they confess to you that they were actually born on the planet Jupiter.
Can you tell us a little about your journey as a writer? Did you always know you wanted to be a writer?
I am fortunate that from the earliest age when I could write a story, around six years old, I recognized how much I loved doing it. Soon after, at age eleven, I lost all of my hair due to the autoimmune condition alopecia. I gave myself the New Year’s resolution to write a poem a day, a practice I continued until I was twenty-one. Writing has always sustained me in difficult times. For a while in college I thought that I should commit myself to something more practical, but after college I admitted to myself that writing was my path, even if that meant doing other work to support it.
The Need captures sides of motherhood not often seen in media or fiction. How did motherhood—your own, or how you’ve understood it in culture and society—impact the development of the novel?
Even though motherhood is a very common experience, there were still so many things that shocked me about it when I had children. I was shocked about lots of little things (i.e., I hadn’t ever realized how breast pumps work, or that they look like alien machines). But I was also shocked by big things. I hadn’t ever realized that the overwhelming, ecstatic love I instantly felt for my newborn would have a dark undertone of anxiety and responsibility. I had never before loved like that; I had never before been that vulnerable; I had never before had so much to lose. Perhaps this is something that isn’t often spoken about because it kind of defies language. Or perhaps that dark intensity of parental love is scary to talk about and so we avoid it, when in fact it might help new mothers to know that they aren’t alone in this sublime experience of simultaneously bringing a life and a death into the world.
My older sister died when my daughter was eight weeks old, so my early days of motherhood were also characterized by my grief and by my parents’ grief. It was painfully apparent to me then that life and death go hand in hand. That experience created the emotional landscape of The Need, and I dedicated the book to my mother and my sister.
Did you have any favorite scenes or characters to write?
Writing the scenes of Molly’s children, Viv and Ben, served as a way to commemorate and thereby celebrate—in all its texture—the way it feels to be parenting a baby and a toddler, which is what I was doing at the time. Those days were so sleep-deprived and all-consuming that I find it hard to remember what they felt like now that they’re behind me. The Need is, in part, a dispatch from that stage of life.
I also found it very dynamic to write Molly’s interactions with Moll. It was fascinating to imagine the way one might interact with a version of oneself who has had a different life experience. What are the points of overlap and what are the points of friction? When does competitiveness turn to compassion and vice versa?
Can you tell us a little about the title? How did you come up with it? What, to you, does the “need” refer to?
The title The Need arrived very late in the game, right before I was about to seek a publisher for the book. It came to me in a flash and I instantly knew it was the title I’d been looking for. There are so many kinds of need in the book: the infant’s most basic need for milk; the toddler’s need for love, attention, food, care; Molly’s need to be needed by her children, to love and be loved by them; Moll’s need for the children she has lost.
The ending of the novel is open to interpretation; how would you like readers to understand the conclusion?
I consider the ending of each of my novels a collaboration with the individual reader. How do the reader’s own experiences and ideas color their understanding of the conclusion? I rewrote the ending of The Need countless times in order to craft a carefully calibrated ambiguity that would illuminate different plausible paths and allow room for the reader’s own interpretation. After the book was published, I heard from many different readers about how they understood the ending. I was thrilled by the range of interpretations, and by the way the ending seemed to serve as a mirror for the reader.
What was the most surprising thing you learned in your research for the book?
I was intrigued when Dr. Allen told me that it is not uncommon for paleobotanists to be surprised by the fossils they discover; we still don’t have a full understanding of the fossil history of the planet. This made paleobotany the ideal profession for Molly, who keeps finding inexplicable objects at her site. Even though Dr. Allen is an early career scientist, she has already identified multiple new fossil species.
What do you hope readers will take away from reading The Need?
The character who is an antagonist at the beginning of the book transforms into something else by the end. I hope The Need might encourage readers to have compassion for presumed enemies.
And I hope the book captures the rich, complex mix of emotions of parenthood. The light, the shadow, the joy, the terror, the abundance, the potential for loss. I think that we’re better off if we have some way to name and embrace all of it.
When Molly, home alone with her two young children, hears footsteps in the living room, she tries to convince herself it’s the sleep deprivation. She’s been hearing things these days. Startling at loud noises. Imagining the worst-case scenario. It’s what mothers do, she knows.
But then the footsteps come again, and she catches a glimpse of movement.
Suddenly Molly finds herself face-to-face with an intruder who knows far too much about her and her family. As she attempts to protect those she loves most, Molly must also acknowledge her own frailty. She slips down an existential rabbit hole where she must confront the dualities of motherhood: the ecstasy and the dread; the languor and the ferocity; the banality and the transcendence as the book hurtles toward a mind-bending conclusion.
In The Need, Helen Phillips has created a subversive, speculative thriller that comes to life through blazing, arresting prose and gorgeous, haunting imagery. “Brilliant” (Entertainment Weekly), “grotesque and lovely” (The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice), and “wildly captivating” (O, The Oprah Magazine), The Need is a glorious celebration of the bizarre and beautiful nature of our everyday lives and “showcases an extraordinary writer at her electrifying best” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
Discussion Questions:
Were you familiar with paleobotany before reading The Need? What role does this field of study play in the story?
The imagery in the novel, such as the deer mask, is quite surreal. How does this contribute to the overall mood and themes of the book? What other motifs added to the novel’s eerie atmosphere?
The novel has been described as a psychological thriller and a fever dream. How does The Need blend elements of multiple genres like sci-fi, horror, and domestic drama? What genre would you use to describe the novel?
Do you expect parents and non-parents might have differing experiences of reading the novel? Does The Need challenge any preconceived notions about motherhood and identity?
Electric Literature described the novel as “the great American breast pump novel.” How does breastfeeding and other physicalities of motherhood play into the novel?
How did you feel while reading scenes with Ben and Viv? How do they influence the characters’ decision-making processes throughout the novel?
How are the ordinary aspects of daily life juxtaposed with the supernatural elements in The Need?
How do humor and dark comedy take shape in the story? Discuss specific scenes or memorable moments.
The novel explores dualities on many levels, including introducing the possibility of parallel universes. Are you familiar with this concept? Discuss your interpretation of how parallel universes feature in the story.
How does the narrative deal with themes of vulnerability and strength, particularly in Molly’s character?
Consider the following quote: “She and David had a running joke about how they both feared their kids at night the same way that, as children, they’d feared monsters under the bed. Beasts that would rise up from the side of your bed, seize you with sharp nails and demand things of you.” How does fear manifest throughout the novel? Are there moments in the novel that frightened you more than others?
How does Helen Phillips balance the mundane aspects of motherhood, work environments, and marriage with the intense emotions Molly experiences?
What does the ending of the novel imply about the resolution of the story and Molly’s future?
Expand your book club experience:
Discover more about the field of paleobotany! Consider beginning with watching the following interview between Helen Phillips and paleobotanist Dr. Sarah E. Allen, hosted by the Center for Fiction: youtu.be/uTEYEtgXbLk.
Explore more fiction from Helen Phillips, such as The Beautiful Bureaucrat or Hum (check out www.helencphillips.com for more!). What themes do you recognize across her work? How do elements in The Need correspond to elements and characters in her other books?
Discuss other novels, movies, or series that explore the concept of parallel universes. How does the illustration resemble or differ from what Molly experiences in The Need? A few examples to get you started might include Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, Coraline by Neil Gaiman, or Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom by Ted Chiang.
Author Q&A:
Tell us about the inspiration for The Need; how did the story first come together?
When my first child was a few weeks old, I was home alone with her one night. As I was nursing her to sleep, I thought I heard someone walking in the other room of our apartment. I had a flash of terror—what would I do if there was an intruder? I wasn’t even wearing a shirt! I felt extremely vulnerable, and extremely protective of her. There was no intruder in my home, but that feeling stayed with me and was the seed for the opening scenes of The Need.
How did paleobotany come into the writing process or character development for Molly? Did you always know she would be a paleobotanist?
From the beginning, I knew that Molly would have a job that involved excavating the earth, and I knew that she would be uncovering artifacts that didn’t quite make sense. But I wasn’t sure what exactly her profession should be, and I wrote an entire first draft without clarity about that. Then, in a stroke of good fortune, I connected with the daughter of my in-laws’ friends, the paleobotanist Dr. Sarah E. Allen. One night we spoke for a couple of hours about her work, and I knew that this would be Molly’s field, too. I am forever grateful to Dr. Allen for being so generous with her time and her expertise. One of the great pleasures of writing The Need was all that I learned from her about paleobotany.
The novel vividly portrays elements of both realism and speculation, or speculative fiction; how did you balance writing in both styles?
This balance comes very naturally to me. I think surreality swells up into reality all the time. There wasn’t an intruder in my apartment, yet for some seconds I truly believed there was. The human imagination is a powerful thing. Some of the most mundane moments of parenting can suddenly dip into the speculative, like when you’re helping your kid tie their shoe and they confess to you that they were actually born on the planet Jupiter.
Can you tell us a little about your journey as a writer? Did you always know you wanted to be a writer?
I am fortunate that from the earliest age when I could write a story, around six years old, I recognized how much I loved doing it. Soon after, at age eleven, I lost all of my hair due to the autoimmune condition alopecia. I gave myself the New Year’s resolution to write a poem a day, a practice I continued until I was twenty-one. Writing has always sustained me in difficult times. For a while in college I thought that I should commit myself to something more practical, but after college I admitted to myself that writing was my path, even if that meant doing other work to support it.
The Need captures sides of motherhood not often seen in media or fiction. How did motherhood—your own, or how you’ve understood it in culture and society—impact the development of the novel?
Even though motherhood is a very common experience, there were still so many things that shocked me about it when I had children. I was shocked about lots of little things (i.e., I hadn’t ever realized how breast pumps work, or that they look like alien machines). But I was also shocked by big things. I hadn’t ever realized that the overwhelming, ecstatic love I instantly felt for my newborn would have a dark undertone of anxiety and responsibility. I had never before loved like that; I had never before been that vulnerable; I had never before had so much to lose. Perhaps this is something that isn’t often spoken about because it kind of defies language. Or perhaps that dark intensity of parental love is scary to talk about and so we avoid it, when in fact it might help new mothers to know that they aren’t alone in this sublime experience of simultaneously bringing a life and a death into the world.
My older sister died when my daughter was eight weeks old, so my early days of motherhood were also characterized by my grief and by my parents’ grief. It was painfully apparent to me then that life and death go hand in hand. That experience created the emotional landscape of The Need, and I dedicated the book to my mother and my sister.
Did you have any favorite scenes or characters to write?
Writing the scenes of Molly’s children, Viv and Ben, served as a way to commemorate and thereby celebrate—in all its texture—the way it feels to be parenting a baby and a toddler, which is what I was doing at the time. Those days were so sleep-deprived and all-consuming that I find it hard to remember what they felt like now that they’re behind me. The Need is, in part, a dispatch from that stage of life.
I also found it very dynamic to write Molly’s interactions with Moll. It was fascinating to imagine the way one might interact with a version of oneself who has had a different life experience. What are the points of overlap and what are the points of friction? When does competitiveness turn to compassion and vice versa?
Can you tell us a little about the title? How did you come up with it? What, to you, does the “need” refer to?
The title The Need arrived very late in the game, right before I was about to seek a publisher for the book. It came to me in a flash and I instantly knew it was the title I’d been looking for. There are so many kinds of need in the book: the infant’s most basic need for milk; the toddler’s need for love, attention, food, care; Molly’s need to be needed by her children, to love and be loved by them; Moll’s need for the children she has lost.
The ending of the novel is open to interpretation; how would you like readers to understand the conclusion?
I consider the ending of each of my novels a collaboration with the individual reader. How do the reader’s own experiences and ideas color their understanding of the conclusion? I rewrote the ending of The Need countless times in order to craft a carefully calibrated ambiguity that would illuminate different plausible paths and allow room for the reader’s own interpretation. After the book was published, I heard from many different readers about how they understood the ending. I was thrilled by the range of interpretations, and by the way the ending seemed to serve as a mirror for the reader.
What was the most surprising thing you learned in your research for the book?
I was intrigued when Dr. Allen told me that it is not uncommon for paleobotanists to be surprised by the fossils they discover; we still don’t have a full understanding of the fossil history of the planet. This made paleobotany the ideal profession for Molly, who keeps finding inexplicable objects at her site. Even though Dr. Allen is an early career scientist, she has already identified multiple new fossil species.
What do you hope readers will take away from reading The Need?
The character who is an antagonist at the beginning of the book transforms into something else by the end. I hope The Need might encourage readers to have compassion for presumed enemies.
And I hope the book captures the rich, complex mix of emotions of parenthood. The light, the shadow, the joy, the terror, the abundance, the potential for loss. I think that we’re better off if we have some way to name and embrace all of it.
About The Author
Photograph by Andy Vernon-Jones
Helen Phillips
Helen Phillips is the author of six books, including, most recently, the novel Hum. Her novel The Need was a National Book Award nominee and a New York Times Notable Book. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. Her collection Some Possible Solutions received the John Gardner Fiction Book Award. Her novel The Beautiful Bureaucrat was a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A professor at Brooklyn College, she lives in Brooklyn with artist/cartoonist Adam Douglas Thompson and their children. Find her online at HelenCPhillips.com or on X @HelenCPhillips.
About The Reader
Alex Allwine
Product Details
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio (July 9, 2019)
- Length: 416 pages
- Runtime: 6 hours and 19 minutes
- ISBN13: 9781508279778
Raves and Reviews
"Listeners immediately know something is wrong as Alexandra Allwine's urgent tone opens this tense and eerie novel. There's an intruder in Molly's house, and as she crouches in the dark, clutching her two small children, her confusion from sleep deprivation spirals into primal fear. The audiobook jumps between Molly's eventual confrontation with the intruder and her time as a paleobotanist, when she spends her days digging up plant fossils from "the pit" —from which strange objects start emerging. Allwine's voice has a smoky guise that suggests the hazy days Molly so often experiences after sleepless nights. Soon, the secrets of this literary thriller start to unravel, and the dark realities of motherhood rise to the surface."
– AudioFile Magazine
Resources and Downloads
High Resolution Images
- Book Cover Image (jpg): The Need Unabridged Audio Download 9781508279778
- Author Photo (jpg): Helen Phillips Photograph by Andy Vernon-Jones(0.1 MB)
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