How to speak of the searing, unpindownable power that the past – ours, our family’s, our culture’s – wields in the present? In five long sections, Maria Tumarkin’s Axiomatic tells true and intimate stories of a community dealing with the extended aftermath of a suicide, a grandmother’s quest to kidnap her grandson to keep him safe, one community lawyer’s battle inside and against the justice system, the effects of multigenerational trauma, and the history of the author’s longest friendship. In writing that is inventive, bold, and generous, Axiomatic is a brilliantly inventive exploration of how the past shapes our culture.