Rebecca Gayle Howell is the author of Render / An Apocalypse, selected by Nick Flynn for the 2012 Cleveland State University First Book Prize. She is also the translator of Amal al-Jubouri’s Hagar Before the Occupation / Hagar After the Occupation (Alice James Books, 2011). “You Can’t Tell the Truth” is excerpted from her current manuscript, a purgatory set in West Texas.