The Names Have Been Changed to Protect the Innocent: A Fiction Writer Struggles with Nonfiction Tendencies

Tara Ison's first novel, A Child out of Alcatraz, was a Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; her most recent novel, Rockaway, was named one of 2013's "Best Books of Summer" in O, The Oprah Magazine. Her collection of essays, Reeling Through Life: How I Learned to Live, Love, and Die at the Movies, will be published in January 2015. "A Heart, Beating," is excerpted from her novel The List, 2007.