Quirky, strange, vulnerable, and defiant
A review of Hannah Grieco’s First Kicking, Then Not
By Norah Vawter
Hannah Grieco’s debut book is a slim but powerful collection of short stories that are at times funny, at times devastating, and always full of heart, intensity, and life. Examining motherhood, caretaking, and mid-life in First Kicking, Then Not (Stanchion, 2025)—particularly the gritty, imperfect parts of womanhood that we often don’t talk about or acknowledge in our society—Grieco refuses to shy away from her characters’ authenticity, awkwardness, embarrassing moments, and certainly not their imperfections.
Instead Grieco delves deep into themes of disability, mental health, aging, body image, loneliness, pop culture and contemporary life, communication/miscommunication, and especially identity. There’s an equally wide range of styles in this debut collection, as Grieco includes both flash fiction and standard-length stories, and dips into surreal storytelling in some pieces while keeping the narrative more realistic and grounded in others. What is consistent throughout the collection is the beating heart of it all, the pathos: I care deeply for these characters, whether they are portrayed in realistic, goofy, or downright surreal situations.
A former public school teacher turned disability and education advocate, Hannah Grieco lives with her husband and children in the D.C. area. She didn’t start writing seriously until she was in her forties, but since then she’s been incredibly prolific, earning an M.F.A. in creative writing from Randolph College and publishing short fiction and nonfiction widely in many outlets. She now teaches writing and literature at Marymount University (where she previously earned her teaching degree), and periodically offers workshops through The Writer’s Center and other local institutions. She also continues to speak out on education and disability advocacy issues. Grieco is active and connected within the D.C. area literary community—the kind of writer who shows up for other writers.
In many ways the stories within First Kicking, Then Not are about how we tell stories, and how we present ourselves to the world. Grieco seems to be asking the reader to think about what it means to have a voice, a point of view, and also what it means to care for others, to care for ourselves, and to be cared for. Despite the often-heavy subject matter, Grieco’s stories are a lot of fun to read. There are laugh-out-loud moments, and a few places where I cried, but even in the darkest stories, Grieco’s voice is quirky, strange (in the best sense of the word), vulnerable, and defiant. She keeps you wanting to read more, because you want to hear her commentary and understand her point of view on anything from misogyny to fried chicken.
“I poke and prod. I force things. I wasn’t always like this, I mean I’ve changed in the last six years, or maybe I’m not who you thought I was, but somehow giving birth transformed me into this gaping maw and why can’t I see what I’m doing, or was it on purpose, an attempt to trap you, because you feel fucking trapped and you never wanted this, any of it, and Sarah deserved better, deserved not to be born into this bullshit because you never signed on for fatherhood and she never asked for a mother who—”
(“Hand With Blue Triangle”)
Many of Grieco’s protagonists are women in their thirties and forties who are mothers of teenagers or young adults. These are women who have been defined by their children (or their roles as caretakers) and are now getting a chance to be themselves again, to have their own lives, even a second adolescence. They are finding themselves in mid-life. I think it’s worth noting that in our patriarchal society we are much more conditioned to expect this of men—and to be more forgiving of men’s mid-life crises, childish behavior, even selfishness, while reserving more judgment for women behaving in similar ways.. Without moralizing or preaching, Grieco’s stories invite us to question our assumptions about how people, particularly women, “should” act.
As I know first-hand, when you have a child, you lose some of your individual identity, both in the way the world sees you and in the way you see yourself. While many if not all parents experience this to some degree, this identity loss and attempt at reclamation, along with society’s expectations of selflessness and devotion, is, in my opinion, a particular trial of motherhood, which Grieco explores and exposes in her work.
“She takes the keys to James’ red Porche Targa off the hook. His midlife crisis, she mean-jokes at parties, but really she’s the one who loves to drive it. She loves the round knob of the stick in her palm, loves to shift late to hear the engine grind. Maybe I’ll go all the way to the beach, she thinks, to that burrito place by the boardwalk.”
(“Maybe”)
One particularly compelling story is “To Rest Her Feet, to Feel Like One of the Girls,” in which a seemingly perfect mother abandons her children, shocking and upsetting people who know her, and causing them to try to figure out why she would do such a thing. Other standouts include “Launch,” a subtle and sensitive depiction of a mother with bipolar disorder; “One to Ten,” a delightfully scattered story about, among things, lists and orderliness; “Maybe,” in which the protagonist’s husband buys a midlife crisis sportscar but she’s the one who likes to drive it; and the extremely funny, wacky, risky “Nina Parker Chooses Nymphomania.”
It’s hard for me to choose a favorite story in this collection, particularly because there is such a wide range of style and tone. But I do keep coming back to the titular story, “First Kicking, Then Not,” which stands out partly because it’s very different from the rest of the collection, and partly because it’s just freaking brilliant, heartbreaking, and darkly funny all at once. There’s a fairy tale quality to this story, which centers on a mysterious beast that’s stealing the community’s children. And yet the story is not told in allegory, but in fairly grounded, realistic storytelling. It’s not even that surreal, except for the monster of it all, and made me think about the fragility and randomness of life, death, and loss.
There were a couple stories that didn’t land as well for me, generally because the careful balance of realism and surrealism in some pieces is not as effective. For instance, in “The Gold Standard” the protagonist eats breakfast with the Rock (as in Dwayne Johnson, the professional wrestler turned actor), and I do find the premise delightfully wacky. But the surrealism doesn’t work as well here, and I just didn’t “get” the story. I had too many questions about what was real and what wasn’t real. I kept getting pulled out of the story. And yet I still enjoyed the voicey, unapologetic tone.
What Grieco manages to do in the most successful stories of First Kicking, Then Not is to weave together a sense of dark humor with heart. She’s writing narratives that are very funny, but at the same exact time they're also very sincere. Grieco gives us no morals or lessons. In fact, she tends to write about morally gray people, and morally gray choices. There's darkness in her work, but never cynicism, because Grieco is acknowledging how scary and complicated and messy the world can be—but that all of these details, large and small, serious and ridiculous, gritty and whimsical matter. The world matters. And that—along with the many, many funny lines—feels like hope. I think we’re going to be seeing a lot more from this author. I’d like to read a novel, or ten. (No pressure, Hannah.)
Buy your copy of First Kicking, Then Not directly from the small, necessary publisher, Stanchion Books.
If you’re in Philadelphia on September 23, Hannah will be in conversation (or possibly a fight) with another local author at The Head and the Hand. (The description for this event makes it sound really fun: ”It's a literary (but not literal) throwdown at H&H Books when debut authors Samuel Ashworth (THE DEATH AND LIFE OF AUGUST SWEENEY) and Hannah Grieco (FIRST KICKING, THEN NOT: STORIES) face off. Everyone wins!”)
Follow Hannah on Instagram and other social media @writesloud to learn about future events.
Listen to this great podcast conversation on Some Things Considered with Sean Murphy: Hannah Grieco. Listen here.
And if you want to read more of Hannah’s work, check out this anthology that she edited, Already Gone: 40 Stories of Running Away, and links to her many published stories on her website. And definitely check out her regular column on the local literary scene in the Washington City Paper, Spot LIT.
Hannah Grieco is a writer, editor, and teacher in Washington, DC. Her work has been published in The Washington Post, The Independent, Al Jazeera, Huffington Post, Brevity, Craft, Poet Lore, Shenandoah, Fairy Tale Review, The Offing, and more. She writes a monthly literary column for the Washington City Paper and edits prose for a variety of independent presses and literary journals. Find her online at www.hgrieco.com and on most social media @writesloud.
Norah Vawter is the co-founder and fiction/nonfiction editor of Washington Unbound. She’s a freelance writer, editor, and novelist, represented by Alisha West. Follow her on Instagram @norahvawter and check out her Substack, Survival by Words, here.
