Shelby Rice - "A Flicker in the Night"

Shelby Rice's "A Flicker in the Night" is about the relationship between the narrator and his mother. The story tell s of how he or she would always wait for the mother to come in and tuck her/him in. Now, his/her mother no longer does this, and death is implied, so the narrator can no longer sleep.

I'm still not really sure how I should evaluate short-short stories, but I know that I really like yours. In particular, I love how you structured it to emphasize every sentence in the ending. It gives each sentence a real power that they might have otherwise lacked. The scene with the mother is touching, but something about it is also somewhat off-putting. Maybe it is because of the imagery of the perfume that would follow her everywhere. Something about the idea of this perfume clutching to her all hours of the day seems somewhat disturbing. How often does she reapply it? Or does she really overdo it that much at the beginning of the day?

Besides this one little flicker, I can't find anything to complain about though. There were a few grammatical issues and one case of a missing word or phrase, but those are things that you'll fix in revisions without issue. You portray your character's emotions well, and you make me remember times when I would stay near my parents because they were security. All in all, good job!

Alyson Smith - "Swiss Cheese"

Alyson Smith's "Swiss Cheese" is about a girl named Brett that is a surgical intern at a hospital. When a trauma patient comes in fromt the local prison, she gets assigned to work with him. This brings up terrible memories about her own mother's murder and leads to a confrontation with both the man that assigns her to the prisoner and the prisoner himself.

I enjoyed the general plot of the piece. It was nothing earth-shattering, but at the same time, I have to admit that it was more enjoyable than I thought it was going to be. I'm glad you didn't go for the plot-twist that I expected and have the prisoner be her mother's murderer. I also love the facts that you threw into the piece: the cows fall to relax them before they die, the way lethan injections worked, etc.

There was also a lot of language used that seemed completely unnecessary to tell this story. It's particularly bad at the beggining where you are describing the surgery of the banana. It almost sounds here like you are trying to be a Victorian author with lines such as, "She frowned in concentration, her hands, slippery with inner fluids, tried desperately to salvage the ripped, yellowed flesh that was coming apart even as she attempted to pus the squishy innard back inside the swollen cavity." It's just too much, and it detracts from the overall understanding of your work.

Second, while I'm not saying it's unbelievable because I have no idea, I'd find it hard for people to be willing to go through an expensive twelve-hour surgery to help a man destined to die in a week anyway. I understand that hospitals are supposed to do whatever possible to help a patient, but I'm curious if the prison would bother rushing the man to the hospital. The entire incident would likely cost a couple thousand dollars, and I'm not sure the general public would be all that happy about such things.

Molly Kirkpatrick - "Blood"

Molly Kirkpatrick's "Blood" is about a girl of an unknown age, assumed to be in her late teens to mid-twenties, that has been sent by her mother to a psychiatric ward after the death of her father. Throughout the story, we learn more about her relationship with her parents, her feelings about the ward, and who really should be put in the ward.

I really love the voice of the story. While I know it's a voice that you commonly use, it's something that you always manage to pull off very well in a variety of situations. However, in this particular story, the voice is not established early enough, and the first instance of that wonderful voice was found to be particularly jarring and surprising. It doesn't come up until page two's, "...but, dude... They really don't." An easy fix to this would just be to take that paragraph on page two (the entire thing) and transpose it to the opening of the piece. I think this would help immediately establish setting and would require very little work to make this entire issue disappear.

Another thing that I really liked was the use of the mother's need for cleanliness. It did border on disturbing, which I felt you really wanted to do. Anyway, I know that I was disturbed by her skin peeling from her hand because of showering too much. Normally, I'd say that it made me want to go take a shower, but... yeah.

I kind of had an issue with the character of Kado. While I know that he's not that important to the story, I feel that he relies a bit too much on the hippie/vegan stereotype to convey who he is. I cannot really think of any unique details to his characterization. Rather, he seems to be there to provide a new element to go back to the father. He seems unnecessary and could be cut entirely without affecting the main story.

I also must admit that I'm not a big fan of how much money they seem to have: a beachhouse and a boat and goodies at a marina seem much for people that live on a teacher's salary exclusively. How the hell could they have afforded such things?

Paul Vance - "Support Group"

Paul Vance's "Support Group" is about a man that attends a meeting for sex addiction? those sexually abused? something like that... Anyway, he talks about his issued with masturbation and women throughout his life, constantly apologizing for his awkwardness and inability to say "those words." In the end, he just walks out of the meeting.

I really love that you did this piece entirely in dialogue. It works really well and is exceptionally entertaining to read. Some of the lines are really funny, and one really gets a sense for the character. He's got some unique views on life, in general, and the structure of this piece really works. That being said, sometimes his awkwardness comes off as too-heavy and gets annoying for the reader to trudge through. I like the awkwardness, but you have to be careful not to make it TOO heavy-handed.

There were some images that he started and worked with that were interesting and weird, in a good way, like the rotting pee for semen. They really helped distinguish the work. The were some areas, on the other hand, where the image was cut off and it sounded weird, like when he said, "I still did it in the trees after that, though. And the squirrels..." Be careful in things like this because it sounds like he was doing something sexual to squirrels.

The ending was odd though. With him just walking out, I wasn't sure how to take it. Was it supposed to say how he didn't identify with the people in the meeting at all or about how selfish he was? I just had no idea how to understand this.

Emily Feagan - "The Marriage of Ruth and Isaac"

Emily Feagan's "The Marriage of Ruth and Isaac" is about a mother that is hesitant about her daughter's wedding and can't show completely happiness. She thinks they are getting married too young, too insecure, and without enough knowledge. She also seems to want to avoid having a case of empty-nest syndrome by clinging onto her little girl as long as possible.

I still really love your rustic imagery and nostalgic memories that anybody can seem to have fondness for despite the fact that the memories don't belong to them. I also love the use of floral descriptions and the importance of flowers in the story. However, I felt that you really could have done more with both the use of the pastel-colored flowers and the use of flowers as a device in the story. With them, you could have expanded the story further and fleshed out the characters some more.

I feel like the negative aspects of the mother are told to us and never really shown to us. Why is she the practical one? What makes her so much more practical than her daughter about this wedding? Is she even that much more practical, or is she just trying to be negative to hold onto Ruth longer? A couple added scenes of wedding prepartion can really get this aspect of the mother across well.

The story, as it stands now, has places where you can easily transition to those scenes without moving the story around easily. Really, all your story needs is some more expansion, and I know that with that expansion, the change at the end (the support for the daughter) will seem more powerful.

Kevin Boy - "Where to Start?"

"Where to Start?" is about a sheltered boy, Darroll, that feels imprisoned by his father and mother. One day, when he went to public school for all of one day, his grandfather delivered him in an old sports car that fascinated him as a child. Later, when he died, his parents told him that the grandfather had sold it to pay off medical bills, and when he finds the grandfather's will, he runs from the house to find what rightfully belonged to him.

I liked the idea of the kingdom, prison, and home being the same general thing. You used some references to it later in the piece, but on the other hand, I think you could have played up the parallel more. I would have loved for you to use these three images to frame everything that can be done. I think this would give both a better sense of character and a better sense of his hatred of his home life.

On the other hand, the characters seem flat and the story thus seems incomplete. I believe an ending where nothing is resolved except the character's intention CAN work, but at the same time, everything else has to be perfect to make it work. Where the story is now, it seems like a story that ends midway through the plot. On the other hand, if you can make the decision to leave seem like a more monumental decision, then the success of his endeavor would seem less important.

Janelle Green - "Safe"

Music for this reading: Anastastia Prokhodko - Mamo

Janelle Green's "Safe" is about a college student that lives alone. Her parents divorced when she was ten-years-old, and ever since then, she's been taught and keen to hate men. When she began college, her father gave her dog to help protect her. This particular night, the main character finds her dog to be acting oddly, and when a man breaks in without the dog's intervention, the student is put through hell and almost raped.

I think the best part of this whole scene is the history you have given this character. She's extremely-round and her irrational fears are easily justified, although, I still found one scene to be  bit much. Then again, it wasn't really that big of a deal. Another good part of the piece was the structure of the whole thing, the long paragraphs giving the sensation of somebody that was panicked and fearful. I bet it would be even more effective if you had smaller paragraphs at the beginning to show her usual thought process.

The character's use of the cell phone seems odd, to tell the truth. At first, she's too scared to grab it and use it. Then, she grabs it as she leaves her room to check on the health of her dog that she's worried about. Then, in her moment of greatest panic, she is able to use it and speak coherent sentences to the officer. I wonder if you should find a way to disable the cell phone, giving the story greater tension. Admittedly, it would have to change how you got to the end, but I know you could do it.

There was also one line on page five that really stood out as weird. "It was interesting because the mask he was wearing almost seemed familiar, but I was too scared to really think about it." That's not something I would be able to let go if I felt I was in mortal danger because, damn it, if I know the assailant, I'm going to call them out on it before they get me. It also seemed odd, based on what I got of her personality, that she would notice something like that and immediately let go of it. It would cause her more panic, at the very least.

Jhumpa Lahiri - "Once in a Lifetime"

Jhumpa Lahiri's "Once in a Liftime" is about a young girl telling her perspective of  meeting of cultures, of two families (one hers and one mine) that had been close but had been separated by a new culture for my parents, a culture they developed when we lived in Bombay, a culture more American than those that had lived in America.

Of course, the most interesting part of this story is the interesting use of the first- and second-person perspective to tell the tale. This does a couple things. First of all, it helps the reader to feel even more familiar with the culture than most of the readers would be. It stops the reader from feeling alienated by Indian culture in that way. It also creates a sense of nostalgia in the reader, despite the fact that the plotline of this story clearly did not happen to the any member of the audience. It also makes the loss of "my" mother at the end of the piece more poignant because it makes one put his/her mother in there in place of the woman that's in there.

Another interesting aspect of this piece is the time skips that begin and end the story. Both time skips alienate the two families, and both times, neither of them ever seem to reconcile besides the young narrator of the story. In fact, I would argue that by the end, the only tie between the two families is the tie the narrator feels for "my" family, and as I am me, a possible sense of attachment I have for the narrator and/or her family. It's a tie that can only been seen in the younger generation, as the parents are too distant from each other to be repaired.

The "you and I" narration of this story is something that I, as a writer, would love to attempt one time. It's a type of narration that seems to be expressly forbidden, but at the same time, expressly poignant in  way that no other perspective can be. I would like to attempt to achieve that balance that allows for this poignancy.

Shelby Rice - "The Bleeps and Blips of Life"

Music for this reading: 4Fun - Love or Leave

Shelby Rices "The Bleeps and Blips of Life" is about the character Anna. Her father is in a coma in the hospital room, dying. She's always by his side. Then, her sister shows up, and the reader begins to learn about Anna's relationship to her family, her stubborn streak, and her broken relationship with her mother and sister.

I love the descriptions in this piece. The second paragraph of the first page was absolutely amazing because that's exactly what it's like, even though you barely realize it. I also really like the fullness of the characters Karen and Anna. I felt that I could understand them both and could try to take either side. At the same time, I felt that you completely villainized the mother, giving her no redeemable traits. I understand that from the narrator's perspective there aren't, but that doesn't mean you can't hide something redeeming in there for the reader to pick up.

I also really liked your use of dialogue. The line where Karen stumbled out that it might be a good idea to take their father off life support was perfect!

I also feel like I would have liked to see some actual interaction with the mother, just in a memory or something. Everything we get about the mother was told to us by one of the daughters, and we never really get to see the favoritism or the general badness for ourselves. It also seems that the only real reason that Anna dislikes Karen is that she was liked by the mom. Is that supposed to be the only reason? None of the other justifications given by Anna seem anything more than normal siblings.

Christina Kettering - "Password Protected"

Music for this reading: Marija Šestić - Rijeka bez imena

Christina Kettering's "Password Protected" does two things in its narrative. First, it tells the story of the narrator and her brother Thomas, expounding on their relationship through the use of social networking and how they presented themselves on such social networks. Second, it also tells of a general criticism of the use of social networks and what people put on these social networks.

The things that really work include the content of the social network. I could see all of it being on a Facebook wall, and at the same time, reading these various different types of updates weren't boring because they were unique enough. The only one I wondered about was the event for a suicide. I'm pretty sure that Facebook would take that down, but at the same time, that doesn't mean she didn't find it before it was removed. These updates were also great ways to transition to the back story and tell more about the relationship between the two.

That being said, I feel that the transitions back weren't very smooth. Since you had tense issues throughout the piece, the transitions weren't always totally apparently until a couple lines into the paragraph. One way to help alleviate this is to change the tense of the story. I'm thinking that using the present tense for the present day sections and the perfect tense for the memories might help to ease transitions a bit. There might still need to be a little more tweaking you have to do.

My biggest criticism though is that I don't feel like I know enough about the narrator alone. I definitely know here relationship to her brother, but all I really know of her alone is that she's private and isn't really trusting. Maybe a few more revealing characteristics?

Matthew Diaz - "Series of Omissions"

Music suggestion for this piece: Emily Wells - Symphony 8 & the Canary's Last Take

Matthew Diaz's "Series of Omissions"  is written as the obituary of one Norman O'Conner: father, husband, disappointment, hatemonger, best dad ever. It shows all the complexities and some of the evolution that this man went through in his lifetime and how his survivors dealt with him and with their loss of him.

It's pretty clear that you ran out of time when writing this piece. It really needs more before I can give a full explanation of what really works and what doesn't. However, I can say that the title is absolutely fantastic. I don't think that there is a better one for your piece. I also like the parallelism in the use of "He is survived" at the beginning of each paragraph after the first and the last. It's a small touch that reminds you of the style of the piece.

As for what cold be improved, I feel like I don't understand much of what motivates the character to do what he does. Why did he decide to make up with his daughter? If he's such an ass, why did she agree to meet him? In fact, the reason behind many of the details in the piece seemed to lack motivation. If the neighbor was stalking her, why didn't the daughter immediately switch phones? Why would a camping trip get the kids in trouble?

I'd also like to point to a theme that I'd like to see developed more because I thought it was what the story was going to be about at first: physical manifestations of emotion. You begin with the "belt" for punishment and anger, immediately followed by the bar fight that occurs out of grief. I thought the story was going to show the way a physical outlet was instilled on the minds of the children because of that. It's just a suggestion, and the story doesn't suffer from not having it, but I think it would improve the piece.

Cole Stuart - "Status Quo"

 Music for this reading: Compact Disco - Sound of Our Hearts

Cole Stuart's "Status Quo" is about the boy Jake. Jake describes his life as a "social experiment." That is, he likes dressing and doing things to see how people react to the non-normative action taking place in front of them. Many times, preparing for these antics have caused him to be late, and his latest experiment lands him in ISS for tardies (although it was his tenth, and the teacher says more than ten is needed to cause the in-school suspension). There, he gets the chance to observe the trouble-makers, a group he's never really understood.

The sheer strangeness of this boy is probably the greatest positive in the entire piece. He's a very-unique character that I can't say I've seen done in quite the same way before. His voice also seems to be a weird combination of dis-attached and caring that makes for an interesting read. Unfortunately, I don't find any of the characters that interesting at all. They seem to embody a stereotype with one unexpected trait to show that they are more than the stereotype being shown. Even then, I had to infer the stereotype. I'd like to see the characters get a bit more-developed, especially Philip (because he's close to being really round). Perhaps you can do this by having Jake share some of his previous observations and instances with this group?

Another high point was the use of the little dialogue that you used. It's very effective and well-written.

The use of the "buzz buzz" confused me terribly during my first reading, especially considering that the first "buzz buzz" is easy to read as a one-off joke before it's encountered again. That being said, they are important for your theme, but I have to wonder if his mind becoming emptier is really the main change, especially because that'll go back after he's down from his high. Could the real change be more that he went from being an observer or life to a participant in life? That he's living for the moment moreso than for data now? Just some things to think about.

Fiction I: Musical Accompaniments

1. Paul Vance - "The Day Beverly Lost Jessica"

1. Hanna Lindblad - Manipulated

   I think this one is self-explanatory, but it's about manipulation and using others for your personal gain. Need I say more?

2. Hanna Lindblad - Goosebumps 

   Another song by Hanna Lindblad. This time, she's become the manipulated character, a talented artist singing something that is pointless and useless. Actually, pretty much all of Melodifestivalen could be musical representations of this short story.

 2. Cole Stuart - "Vacation from Boyhood"

1. Mulan - We Are Men

I remember singing this in my head while reading "Vacation from Boyhood." It really is the perfect piece to go along with the attempted manliness. 

3. Janelle Green - "The Truth Behind the Window"

1. Pernilla Karlsson - När Jag Blundar  

    It's the chorus of this song that reminds me of "The Truth Behind the Window." Basically, the song is about loss of emotion and is a lamentation about everything fading to grey around her.

4. Shelby Rice - "Beyond the Line"

1. Regina - Bistra Voda

The songs uses military imagery in its stage presentation to add to the intensity of the question of self being asked throughout the song. I feel that the story did the same general thing.

5. Robert E. Lee - "Curtis and Deangelo"

1. Martin Stenmarck - Las Vegas 

Okay, so this may have been an obvious choice, but it's really fitting. It's about how wild and crazy things can get in Las Vegas, especially if you let it draw you in.

6. Matthew Diaz - "Fortune"

1. Orelipoiss - Zombi 

Okay, what were the chances that between the time we read "Television" and your piece, there would be an Estonian song released about somebody watching television and how it detaches them from life.

7. Emily Feagin - "With Sweat Stripes Across Our Bellies"

1. Pogo - Gardyn 

This song and video was made as a Mother's Day present to the artist's mother. I think it captures the familial closeness and beauty that the piece seemed to be conveying.

8. Molly Kirkpatrick - "Chase"

1. Kate Nash - Don't You Want to Share the Guilt 

    Warning: language. Actually, to tell the truth, I believe that all Kate Nash songs pretty much fit the main character's voice. My first choice song actually didn't have any quality videos on youtube, but it fit far better.

2.  Kate Nash - Mansion Song

Warning: more language. See? Kate Nash can even fit Caroline's sarcastic anger.

9. Alyson Smith - "Kids"

1. Yaseen & Julie Maria - Sammen

Fresh-faced kids trying to be older than they are? Got it!

10. Robert E. Lee - "A Different Place"

1. Emilie Simon - Mon chevalier 

Emilie Simon wrote this song about her husband, who died of swine flu during the epidemic a few years back. This song was released just last year, and it shows how loss stays in somebody's mind for quite a long time.

"Incarnations of Burned Children" - David Foster Wallace

Music suggestion for this reading: Rona Nishliu - Suus

In "Incarnations of Burned Children," David Foster Wallace has created a story that almost anyone can relate to, not in the situational aspect of the piece but more along the lines of the characters that represent a different, almost-universal aspect of personhood. The child is in constant pain throughout the piece and responds by screaming, a violent cry for help that cannot necessarily come, even with the aide he does receive. The mother is panic. What can she do? What can she do? It's an automatic response to a situation one wasn't prepared for, and it's a dangerous position, especially for the one that is in pain.The father is action. He doesn't necessarily know what should be done, but he knows something needs to be done, and thus he acts to change the situation.

In this way, they are universals, traits that all people understand and all have likely experienced, possibly even all successively. The structure of the piece helps to confirm the ties these universals have to each other. Instead of breaking traits and thoughts into neat paragraphs and long but simple sentences, the piece is organized into one long paragraph that encompasses the whole story and ties every long, panicked sentence with the previous one. Everything is tied together into an inseparable package, becoming one organic scene that manages to incorporate seemingly-unimportant images in a way that makes them as indispensable as the scene that is playing in front of them.

Even the ending, which seems to indicate what happened to the child for the rest of his life, seems to be integrated organically, creating a oneness with the rest piece despite it being a statement of the rest of the child's life in half a sentence. In this way, the scene became like a defining moment in the child's life, possibly even the child's earliest memory that shapes how he sees the rest of his life.

"A Different Place" - Robert E. Lee

"A Different Place" begins with the narrator learning that his family has been in an accident while on vacation overseas. Throughout the rest of the story, he comes to learn that one character, Derick, died, and he watches his family cope with the loss. A lot of the story seems to be about the psychological effects of violent loss on a person's psyche, such as the guilt felt by the father due to being the one driving at the time of the accident.

I really like the dynamic you have with the family. I can tell that they are important to each-other without being obsessive. The interactions between the narrator and the father seemed, for the most part, realistic and important to the piece in its entirety. That's always a great thing. I also like the first two sentences you used to open the piece. The use of the time markers helps to both give a sense of dread and establish both setting and plot.

One area where I'm not sure how I feel is the ending. I kinda like the idea of the narrator ending with the line that makes him feel partially responsible for Derick loss. It also ties in with the opening really well. However, it doesn't feel like a full ending.

I wonder if this lack of closure stems from my feeling that the narrator shouldn't be the main character. I think the most-important character in the piece seems to be the father, and the narrator is nothing more than a observer, watching the events unfold. I don't really feel that the main character is allowed far enough into the main conflict of the plot to have more than a tertiary role in the development of the plot and very little impetus for change. Perhaps you should change to the father's perspective?

Another suggestion I have, which is just a small one, is to make sure that people understand that Liberia is a city in Costa Rica. I think that most people are going to assume the African country first. Also, while I like the large family, perhaps cutting down on the names would help readers attach names to bodies for the few that you really want us to learn, like the wife and step-mother.

"Kids" - Alyson Smith

"Kids" is about Jenny, a girl that is visiting a Bible camp with a menagerie of other girls. These girls fall into a range of people, most of them showing that they're not very-good Christians in some form or fashion. Meanwhile, there is small-scale drama over the girls that like different guys and relationship drama that ensues.

The piece manages to be fun and an easy read in most parts. This is an accomplishment when one considers the number of characters that appear in the piece. It rarely seems ambiguous as to who is speaking of where. However, the main character is named Jenny. The girl who becomes the antagonist character is named Jenna. That gets confusing, and it's an extremely easy fix that I'd think about changing one of their names.

The insider's view of young-girl's culture is interesting and helps to establish the mindsets of the characters, but besides Jenny, all the girls seem to be one character that can be called "conglomerate of early teen girl." I'd like to see a character or two get cut to make room for development of the remaining characters in the group. Jenny, herself, seems really cynical, almost like she's given up on trying to fit in with the other girls or sees herself as better than them. It was hard for me to relate to the her because she came off as unlikable in many points of the story. I'd suggest putting some points where she looks up or envies another girl to make her more rounded and human.

"Chase" - Molly Kirkpatrick

"Chase" is about a woman named Caroline. Caroline has human cytomegalovirus, and she's very jaded due to this infection. She is meeting up with the man that infected her, the ex-boyfriend Chase. Chase was one of those men that you'd call a player, a man that gets laid and moves to the next girl, a sister-chaser, the kind of man that would sleep with a girl's best friend the day after taking her virginity. That's Chase. Caroline, on the other hand, was a good girl. She never slept with anybody before Chase, and there was no way for her to get her disease from anybody. Anyway, they're meeting, and through flashbacks, we get an idea of what has created the jaded demeanor of the character.

The parts of this story that really work include the voice of Caroline. The way that she looks back upon her relationship seeps with "What the fuck was I thinking?" and "Boy, he was a jerk." She makes little comments here and there, such as "There was no question along the lines of, 'Are you in love?'", that makes it clear to the reader that she wasn't sure why she allowed this relationship to continue happening. Interestingly, the sarcasm seems to get both heavier and darker as the story continues. By the time she begins naming the zombies in the tattoo parlor, you know that she's regretting everything she did with him.

Another place where I think the piece shines is in its use of subtle characterization to make the reader have strong feelings about the characters in the piece. I don't know about anybody else in the class, but by the second time Felicia was speaking, I wanted to wring her neck and KILL THE WOMAN. The characters that I was supposed to dislike, I disliked strongly (while still recognizing in Chase mild redeeming qualities that prevented him from being a demonized character; there was no hope for Felicia). I also like how the morals of the protagonist are left completely ambiguous. The reader is left disgusted with the idea that she purposefully infected another to get back at somebody, while at the same time feeling the cynicism that led to the action.

However, there are plenty of areas in which the piece can be improved as well. One of the most noticeable examples comes in the use of syntax and grammar. There were a lot of areas where the wording seemed somewhat awkward, and it was ambiguous what the subject of a few pronouns were (that could dramatically change the meaning of the sentence). Jung's theory is left with no real explanation for the reader, and I had no idea what it meant in the meaning of the piece.

The character of Caroline also seemed to go through an informed change more than a noticed change. We are informed how she used to be this "good girl," but we're never shown it nor are we ever given any indication of a real change at the end. She made this action of revenge before the piece took place, and because of the viewpoint we're given of the character, the act of revenge isn't really unexpected, except for the fact that we're told that Chase was her first and that she got herpes from him. On that informed note, how did she get herpes from him but not Felicia? When did Chase get herpes? While cheating on her in the relationship? From the person right before her?

"With Sweat Stripes Across Our Bellies" by Emily Feagin

"With Sweat Stripes Across Our Bellies" is about a woman that had moved away from her family years ago. During that time, Connie's mother has developed dementia and is having trouble functioning the way that she used to function. For example, she has forgotten recipes that the piece gives the impression she used to cook all the time and can no longer remember whether she has taken her pills. The conflict revolves around the narrator's feelings of regret for leaving her family and dealing with having a sick mother.

I think that the best part of the piece are the splices of dialogue interspersed throughout the piece. It breaks up the memories into sections nicely, creating easy-to-read sections. The dialogue also feels extremely realistic, and it seems that Emily did research the effects of dementia. It's really believable. The cooking portion, and the use of muscle memory also is a highlight of the piece for me, and I found that section to be well-written, well-developed, and extremely-important.

However, the piece falls a bit short at the ending. I don't really feel like the character changed that much, but instead, I feel that we're left wondering what's going to happen next with no expectations of how the characters are going to react. The story needs something more in plot to help the reader feel more tension and give the main character an opportunity to change.

There was also a small issue I had with the piece. What did the father do at U.S. Steel that allowed them to buy a piano for a dining room? U.S. Steel doesn't imply a high-wage job, so the idea of a dining room and a piano seem to be from a class just above where they should be. Did they save up for the piano? Considering that the piano has no bearing in the overall plot, I feel that this can be cut without issues. The glasses can be found on an end-table instead.

"Fortune" by Matthew Diaz

Matthew Diaz's "Fortune" is about a man that's watching television in his room when two men come in, shoot his dog, and rob him. Throughout the entire work, the narrator is just sitting on his couch and watching as they go through the motions of the robbery, contemplating doing something. Finally, at the end, after most of the things are damaged, he makes an action against the robbers.

The piece has an excellent plotline. It is hard to put down, and it's excellently worked. I love the flow of events and the observations made by the narrator. It's hard to argue against some of his similes and metaphors, such as the mausoleum teeth. I also like the constant references to the corpse of Duke throughout the piece. That shows that it really disturbs him, almost to the point that he can't believe it happened still.

Where the piece is weak, if you ask me, is in the use of some sentence structure and vocabularly. The use of words such as "concupiscence" and "invective" seem to be fake and writery in the moment, especially considering that such a high vocabulary disappears in the center part of the story arc before resurfacing at the end. It's kind of hard to believe the narrator using some of the words. Also, the piece could use a few more sentences. Two of the three paragraphs on the first page are one sentence long and full of "ands" to connect it. It flows well sometimes, but it's also distracting in the end.

There were some great revealing moments in the piece. The use of the television to reflect both feelings and to explain how he felt was great, and I wouldn't mind seeing it expanded upon. Overall, I was excited to read the piece though. Good job!

"Curtis and Deangelo" - Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee's "Curtis and Deangelo" follows the title characters as they spend time gambling in Las Vegas. Deangelo loses his leather jacket, and as they try to find it, we learn a bit about their backstory together. Both their father's (which I believe are different people) are in different hospitals, and Deangelo's father was in an accident with the family of a character known as Bishop that caused his hospitalization.

The voice of Curtis is easily the best thing about this piece. Some of his one-liners like "Pulls on your chest hair like duck tape" and "What happened to your ass? That just looks like a whole in your back," really add humor and gives the reader perspective into who Curtis is as a person, making him rounder and more-unique than many characters. However, I feel that Deangelo's voice pales in comparison to his. In particular, it seems that Deangelo never really develops a full personality, and the little bit I understand about him seems muddled. I think that may be because I'm not exactly sure of his relationship to Curtis. Are they extended family, family friends, just friends, something else?

Another thing that never fully becomes clear is the back story of the two characters. I understand that there was a car accident, but I was confused as to who was hurt and killed in it. There is mention here of a character named Bishop, but his fate and his relationship to the other two is never fully-elaborated. I felt that I could fully grasp what went on in their past. I would expand this section to make it more interesting.

Another area that I felt needed more clarification was who was talking. Some tags could clear that up right away without any major changes.

There's also one major anachronistic problem in the piece. When we meet Deangelo, he has his leather jacket, but when he realizes he lost it, they haven't separated. The character that we later find out took it was also met by Deangelo before he made it to Curtis. This means that he's searching for a second leather jacket, which I don't think was intentional. Overall, I would say clarity is the major issue of the piece.

"Beyond the Line" - Shelby Rice

Shelby Rice's "Beyond the Line" tells the story of Isaac Adler, a major in the U.S. military. He is given orders by the colonel to use gathered intellect to fire upon three enemy camps in the region. The first two are easy decisions because of their general isolation and lack of complications. However, the third camp is near a small settlement with a school, and Major Adler decides against bombing it. This gets him removed from his post, and he can go back to his wife.

I loved the opening of this piece. It set up the entire situation well, but after the opening, Sophie disappears from the piece except in small excerpts where he looks at her picture. I would have loved it if you had put some back story throughout some of his long periods of waiting (maybe he thinks about Sophie). I also think it could have helped flesh out their relationship and his reluctance to fire on children over other civilians. Maybe she's pregnant or having trouble having a child, and this murder of children would hit home for him.

I also loved the use of slang and acronyms. They weren't overbearing or confusing, and they made it seem like you really knew how military encampments looked. I really trusted your information. The conversation completely in code was one of my favorite parts of the whole piece.

That being said, after the first few pages, the rate of tension increase slowed dramatically. Instead of the quick raises that happened on page one and three, we have long periods of waiting where the only tension is that we haven't heard back from on guy or that he can't make it to his target location. This would be a great place to cut sections from and add back story, such as the aforementioned suggestion with Sophie or a time when he had to choose to have civilian casualties.

Finally, I was a little confused about the school. The intelligence mentions that there are maybe five homes, a mosque/church, and a school. Where do all the kids that go to that school come from? Is it a boarding school, making almost all the casualties children? Is the town larger than intelligence can see? Do they disperse throughout the region, going to multiple villages and towns, and if that is the case, why doesn't he fire after school is let out and the children dispersed? There would be far-fewer casualties then.

"Brotherly Love" by Kevin Boy

Music suggestion for this reading: Jelena Tomašević feat. Bora Dugić - Oro

The song I posted is about two things: protection and tradition. In the same way, I feel those are the main points of conflict in Kevin Boy's story "Brotherly Love". Uncle William and Father Steven are living their lives. Steven has children and both have terrible work hours. At Steven's song Jacob's birthday, the two celebrate tradition in the place where generations of their family have celebrated all their achievements and traditions, the family estate. Unfortunately, the two brothers have not achieved the success needed to successfully continue owning the property, and William has suggested that they take some unknown offer from a character known only as Leslie to allow them to move to St. Louis, where the family would start anew. Steven is reluctant until a break-in that night endangers the family.

By far, the best thing about this text is the narrative voice and the character voices. Everybody is distinct. Samantha is bratty in a likeable way, while Jacob is more stoic. The main character has a good-natured practicality about his voice that endears him to easy interaction and melding to the personalities of the other characters. These voices help the reader to read through the long (but important) build-up to the actual conflict. Another extremely successful element is the use of dialogue. As I already mentioned, the characters have been fully developed, and the dialogue goes a long way in showing this. It also has many witty moments and humor.

The area the story falls short in, however, is the general plotting. As I mentioned, the introduction is long but important. It helps to set up the dynamics of the family and build a solid character. The real area of weakness in plotting doesn't come until the main plot is introduced. Here, it feels like too little information is given to the reader for him to fully understand what is going on. Who is Leslie? What is her offer? What jobs do William and Steven currently have? Why can't the successfully stay in their own house? These questions never get adequately answered in the main plot. Because of this, I'd love to see some more put into the piece, especially in backstory.

"Dress Rehearsal" - Christina Kettering

Music suggestion for the reading (yes, I'm going to start doing these with student works too): Juli Fabian & Zoohacker - Like a Child

Christina Kettering's "Dress Rehearsal" is about a pair of sisters: Kate and Diana. Kate, the main character, is a girl ending her high school career and under serious pressure from multiple sources: college deadlines, her role in the school play (as an extra), and most importantly her feelings of individuality in conflict towards her sister. Meanwhile, Diana seems to still be floating throughout life, playing the role of the younger sister without problem and taking few things seriously.

The first thing I really like is the dichotomy of the two girls. I do get a sense of unwanted antagonism between the two of them, and I can definitely sympathize, if not empathize, with Kate's wish to be a separate entity from Diana. I also enjoy the realism of the characters in the piece. If I can't relate myself to an action, I can relate a person I know to an action. I also like the scene in the opening where they are shopping for dresses. One is searching for perfection in dress form while the other wants it over and done with. It reminds me of some shopping trips with friends.

That being said, I wish that you had found some what to tie in the purple dress that you made such a big deal about with the rest of the story. Sure, it fleshes out that scene, but is there no way to make it compatible with the main plot. Maybe Diana buys that dress for prom? I also feel that the narrative voice is sometimes a fading ghost that is always haunting in the background but rarely jumps to the front of the piece. I'd love to see a stronger voice that rarely takes a back seat.

Finally, I would also love to see some more interaction between the characters. Everything you have right now is great, but I think that a couple more scenes can really help to increase tension some more and to help characterize some of the characters that are passing mentions, such as Andrew, and characterize Sean more. In fact, the beginning of the piece makes him seem like a far more-important character than he turns out to be in the piece. I'd like to see him rise up to that importance.

Janelle Green - "The Truth Behind the Window"

"The Truth Behind the Window" is a short-story about a woman that spends her free time spying on her neighbors through a window. She is unhappy with her current lot in life: an emotionally abusive, yuppie husband, neighbors that she has disdain for, and generally feeling that the neighborhood around her is like a plastic dollhouse of pseudo-perfection.

There are many elements in the story that work. The authors use of questions is spot-on and are used in various effective ways. This includes making the reader search for his/her own answer to the question, as well as insight to what is important for her. They also heighten emotional appeal and give the strongest narrative voice in the entire piece. Another element of the story that is used extremely effectively is the use of time of day. She uses night as a time of illumination, where the houses have to show more because the sun is no longer there to veil what goes on inside. This inversion of the standard use of night and day was refreshing and effective.

That being said, there were elements that could also use more work. One element that really weakened the piece as a whole was the narrative voice. For me, it seemed to take a while to appear at all. The first scene never really dwelled on the implications of any of the actions going on and seemed more like a series of observations made without any really voice in the observations. Another thing that could use improvement is the use of paragraph to highlight particular events and help to illuminate moments of voice that were drowned by the language around it. In particular, there were moments where the author could have treated Janelle's thoughts like regular dialogue and started a new paragraph with them. Finally, another area that needs improvement is that the character needs to show us more and tell us less, especially in interactions with her husband.

"Off" - Aimee Bender

Music suggestion for the reading: Getter Jaani - Rockefeller Street

Aimee Bender's "Off" is an interesting piece. At first, I wasn't sure that I would like it. The narrative took too many turns, and it took me a page or two to adapt to her "stream of thought" narrative style. However, it really worked by the time the story was finished. The narrator would bring up a seemingly-unrelated subject, drop it, and then refer to it later in the piece. By the time the piece was finished, every part of the stream of consciousness seemed important.

The thing that interested me the most about this piece was the character of the narrator. She reminded me of an adolescent girl. It seemed that the character was experimenting in being a little bit of everything, and not only was she a little bit of everything, she was one of the best at everything. Her paintings were amazing pieces that a clueless art teacher couldn't understand. She's the most attractive girl in the party. How could any man not want her? The character was almost like a yuppie yet old-money hipster that had a taste of misunderstood dark girl while still being the sign of utmost perfection. She wants to believe herself the ultimate Mary-Sue archetype.

That being said, I left with the understanding that the girl hated herself. All of this inflated sense of presence seemed to be an attempt to validate herself to a world where she felt the same as a steak lying in a fruit bowl. She feels so out-of-place, probably due to being a girl that gained a huge inheritance in her early. She always felt that she couldn't relate to most people, and after deciding that she couldn't fit into this perceived mold, she instead tried to push herself further from society and create a wall of perfection around her.

Proof of this can be found in her relationships with the characters throughout the piece. She constantly gets jealous of the other women at the part, with the only exception being the Host. These women represent a threat to her, perhaps a representation of something that she feels would be more-desirable to the average man. She insults every woman that she interacts with. This one is weak and meek; that one has a flat ass, while another is simply plain and boring. As for her interaction with the redhead, we find her being insulted at a character remembering a part of her from before she built this wall of self-importance. She was the little girl with the inheritance, the girl she buried.

She even rewards those that help to validate her wall. Adam's insult, "Lady, you are screwed UP" (Bender 116) pleases her. Suddenly, she feels like there is a character that understands that she is different from the rest of society and will make statements to validate those differences, even if they aren't the differences she wants. Even at the end, when he takes her hand while she laments about how she screwed up the night, he is validating her wall, even if the wall was just heavily bombarded by the incident that preceded it.

The most-complex relationship in the short story is that between the narrator and the Host. They have been friends since high school, and the narrator comments that the Host feels "sorry for her" (Bender 108). At the same time, the glimpses at the interactions between the two characters seems to show the narrator validating the Host as a person as well. The scene where the Host tried on clothing for the girl, in particular, showed the narrator praising her with compliments, and I interpreted this as both 1) a homoerotic scene and 2) mutual validation of each-other's character.

"The Love of My Life" - T.C. Boyle

Music suggestion for the reading: Ingrid Michaelson - The End of the World

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with this piece. I love the literary description, the poetic feeling of sentences like "For a long while no one said anything--everything had already been said, over and over, one long flood of hurt and recrimination--and the antiseptic silence of the hospital held them in its grip while the rain beat at the windows and the machines at the food of the bed counted off numbers." What I really love is that this poetic structure is so powerful throughout the whole piece that I could just open the book and read a sentence at random and find such literary description.

I love the first paragraph. I love how it succinctly summarizes their relationship without making it seem either cliche or like he's telling us too much. I love how it is followed by a scene that proves everything the reader is told in that opening paragraph while still showing more about them and their relationship. In general, I love the structure of the piece, a structure that I would love to have as much mastery over as Boyle clearly does.

However, I hate the main characters of China and Jeremy. I hate them, not because they aren't realistic or well-rounded or even likeable, because they are so incredibly, annoyingly stupid. We have it established for us in the beginning that neither of them wants children, at least they don't want any anytime in the near future. "It became a running theme in their relationship, the breeders overpoplating an overpopulated world and ruining their own lives in the process." Knowing this, I find it hard to sympathize with either characters. I can't sympathize with a girl that doesn't want to go to a doctor or a clinic to get rid of this child she didn't want and then tells her boyfriend to get rid of it after she gives birth. I can't sympathize with a boy that doesn't use all the pressure in his power to get her to monitor her health and to make a decision, any kind of decision, about her pregnancy.

That being said, I still did enjoy the story for the most part. As much as I wished to strangle the characters for refusing to decide what they should do, especially considering that China seemed like the type of character that planned everything and understood long-term consequences, the constant raising of stakes and increased tension (combined with the wonderful structure of the piece) kept me reading. I also believe that I found the general progression of events after they killed the baby to satisfying.

"Vacation from Boyhood" by Cole Stuart

"Vacation from Boyhood" is a short story about two childhood acquaintances/fair-weather friends that have grown closer through social networking since going to their respective colleges. They have developed a friendship as "idea" men and debate various topics. Now, they decide that they need to plan a trip to become true "men" and to test and compare their "manliness." Through various distractions and bumbled attempts, the trip does not turned out as planned. However, while this piece is definitely about manliness, it is even-more about the friendship between these two man and asking such questions as: "What makes a man?" and "How do you develop self-worth as a man that is not 'manly'?"

The piece is strong in various areas. One of the strongest parts of the piece is the author's use of dialogue to both create a sense of competition between the two characters. The dialogue manages to both realistic and beneficial to the story in most places. In particular, I enjoyed the banter between the two characters as they try to prove their masculinity to each other after the narrator picks Connor up. Another strong part of the piece was the use of humor. Going back to the banter when the narrator picks Connor up, which is arguably the strongest part of the piece, the line "Well this morning after my mom woke me up, I was all like 'make me a sandwich for the trip,' and then she did," made me laugh. It reminded me of something many of my friends would joke about to my female friend that works at Subway. ("I walked in there and told her to make me a sandwhich, and she did.")

Another small but significant part of the story was when the author referenced to earlier in the story during the attempt to light the fireplace. Connor boasts about something that happened in Boy Scouts, just as the narrator said a few pages earlier that Connor was likely dying to do. This made me, as a reader, feel like he was let in on some sort of inside joke.

That being said, there are some issues with the piece. The weakest part of this piece is the back-story. Much of it seems weak and confused. This is mostly a by-product of two issues. The first of these issues is that the author used many passive sentences when writing that section. Many times, the sentences would be structured in a way that would bog down the reader, making the section more-difficult to read than need be. For example, "The remembrance of the sense of accomplishment and freedom was inspiring when I imagined stomping around the crunchy orange and brown autumn forest as if I were the king of it all" instead of "I remembered the sense of accomplishment and freedom that inspired me as I imagined being the king of the crunchy orange and brown autumn forest." The second major issue in the back-story is that many of the phrases are vague generalities and examples of "telling me" instead of "showing me" what the character is about.

One more weakness of the story was the constant telling that the story was about manliness. Many times, the character would make references to things that would be "manly" enough or that this would show his manliness. I feel that these are unnecessary and actually degrading to the work as a whole because they make me feel like I'm being beat over the head with one of the major themes of the piece when the narrator is doing a perfectly fine job of showing us that the entire trip is a naive competition of manliness. I don't thing that I need to be told that as well.

"The Day Beverly Lost Jessica" - Paul Vance

"The Day Beverly Lost Jessica" is about the character of Beverly. Beverly is the mother of Jessica, an aspiring entertainer and singer that is pushing her mother into allowing her to audition at "WORLD WIDE MUSIC". Throughout the piece, the narrative voice and dialogue reveal many of Beverly's fears about the company and about the idea of her daughter becoming an entertainer at such a young age. By the end of the story, the mixture of Beverly's confusion and apprehension because of the mayhem of the situation around her leads to her loss of her daughter. I assume this loss is meant to be symbolically due to the hints that she just went into the other room to participate(?) in the brawl at Jackson's encouragement. Instead of remaining her little girl, Jessica becomes a figure that has found a new authority figure that she wishes to follow, that of Jackson and the record company.

The strongest point of this piece is the characterization of Beverly, especially through her reminisces of Jessica as a young girl. The reader gets some excellent images, such as "painting Easter eggs in December" and "that she would never again see her daughter's hair bounce from side to side in a pony tail as she walked." These small observations and yearnings for the past reveal much about Beverly's character. It shows her devotion to the child, as well as an image of her ideal child and what Beverly believes innocence to be. We also learn a lot about her from a generational standpoint during the scene where Jackson is listing internet celebrities that earned fame through a single Youtube video.

At the same time, some of Beverly's observations lead to some of the weakest parts of the piece. In particular, the way that Beverly's narrative voice describes the studio during the first paragraph and throughout pages three and four are jumbled and confused. While this may be intentional to show the confusion of Beverly, the syntax and some of the images led me to be completely lost while reading the description. The first paragraph is the worst offender. The first two sentences are a page-and-a-half long, and they seem to jump all over the place. Even the first part of the first sentence is very appealing to the reader. The opening is extremely passive, and if I were a consumer, I would likely have moved on to a new piece after reading the first three lines. A good way to fix this problem would be to begin with Beverly instead of "Beverly's daughter" and to begin with a definite action rather than a description of how a future action was performed.

Another weaker part of the piece was the ending. The last two pages are entirely dialogue, leaving a lot of ambiguity about what is going on around the characters during the scene. For one thing, I missed the moment at which Mark appeared, and the brawl is never really foreshadowed or explained. A return to narrative voice could be a great boon for the dialogue-heavy ending. It might help to clarify for the author a bit more as to what is going on.

Parents, Love, and the South: Eavesdropping

1: My dad's cool. My mom-
2: I just told my parents, 'Oh God, I'm glad it's starting to sink in.'
1: Yeah, still fine.
2: She just told her parents. Handed me the phone right after she told her dad. I'm terrified.
3: I would be too.
1: No! He wanted to say hi.
2: Cool, sounds like a nice gy.
1: He's my favorite parent. I didn't make her talk to my mom. That would've been worse.
2: My dad's birthday is next week.
3: My dad's birthday is today. I didn't even get to say 'Hi' because he's in Africa, so I sent a Facebook message to my mom, like 'Oh, Mom, tell Dad happy birthday for me.' [She laughs.]
2: What's your dad doing in Africa?
3: Well, they're there.
2: Like for pleasure?
3: Well, they were supposed to go last year at this time, but...
1: My parents never just go to Africa
3: Well, my mom's a travel agent, so she knows like when to go and how to go, and they were just-
1: It's summertime there right now, huh?
3: Yeah. -Than they were supposed to go at this time last year, bt we had some family situation to take care of.
2: Yeah, I understand.
...
2: When I made my first status post about my girlfriend -It was something like, 'I'm meeting up with my girl,' or something like that- my mom told me, 'You don't need to have something like that on Facebook.
1: My mom and I aren't Facebook friends, but I am friends with some really Southern cousins and aunts and uncles, so I'm just not planning to be on Facebook for a few days.
3: If I was going to say I was doing something with my girlfriend, I would never post it on Facebook just because of the fact of where I live, and it wouldn't even be the fact of me, but it's the fact that my family would be ostracized by everyone. 'Cause I mean, I live in Red Palm Beach, Tennessee. It's like the Southern Pride Capital and Republican Pride Capital of Tennessee, and it's the place where the Klan began. I mean, my neighbor, she was looked down upon because she started dating a black man. You'd never hear of that being done here.
...[The three pass around a picture on a phone.]
2: I love Deviantart.
1: How did they do that?
2: They probably wore the paint and added the smoke in with Photoshop.
3: Deviantart can be so fun to browse through.
2: Although sometimes I wish I had the maturity filter on.
3: Yeah, I've been there. There are some things my mind cannot unsee to save my life.

Richard Bausch - "1-900"

 Song suggestions for "1-900": Milow - You and Me (In My Pocket) (John)
Caro Emerald - Back It Up (Marilyn/Sharon)

Well, this was a fun little piece we have here. Unlike "Emergency" that came before, this dark humor piece is far more-accessible to a more casual reader. The piece is fairly straight forward, a phone sex conversation that the client refuses to allow to get to the actual phone sex.

Then, what makes this piece worth reading? There is some brilliant use of language in the piece that brings out the character. One of my favorite lines was the quote, "My wife and money, that was like a land-war-in-Asia kind of thing" (Bausch 56). Further down the page, John explains the quote as a reference to the Vietnam War. It also proves John's interest in history. Sure, he explains to Marilyn/Sharon that he likes history, but the reader could already tell that by the reference.

Another brilliant use of language comes on page 59. The two characters are discussing the problems between John and his wife Kate when Marilyn/Sharon asks, "And what was her problem with you?" Up to this point, Marilyn/Sharon has been extremely reluctant to really have the conversation John has been begging for. She has barely supported the conversation, and this is the second question that she asks that actually supports the conversation between them. It seems like John is actually going to have his conversation until he immediately answers that question with, "Oh, lots of things. Lots that things that it isn't anybody's business to know." Here John is being evasive.

Immediately, such evasiveness brings me to wonder two things. First, I wonder why he doesn't realize that "it isn't anybody's business to know" is what the character of Marilyn/Sharon has been saying the entire time. It is not John's business to know if she's been to college or if she's seeing anybody. She's not paid to talk about such things, and she's uncomfortable telling them to a complete stranger. Secondly, it makes me wonder what he's hiding. John comes across throughout the rest of the play as an extremely open character, possibly even embarrassingly open, so this act of secrecy gains even more prominence when compared with the rest of the piece. It makes one wonder what it is that makes even a guy that tells everything to a phone sex operator cannot tell.

Denis Johnson - "Emergency"

Music suggestion for this reading: Gogol Bordello - Through the Roof 'N' Underground

Denis Johnson has created an extremely thought-provoking piece in this short story. In particular, as I have seen noted in a few other responses, the reliability of the narrator is shattered by both his drug use and his own admittance that the actual facts of the day matter little. Instead, this lack of a definite truth to the narrative forces the individual to focus on other elements of the story.

The first element of "Emergency" that the lack of truth highlights is a sense of voice. The narrator has a sense of absolute passivity to the events that he's seeing, even as they get more and more unrealistic and surreal. In fact, he only shows an active reaction, fear to be exact, when he believes angels are descending to him in a graveyard (Johnson 390). Likely, it was fear that he had died in the cold of the blizzard that evoked such a strong reaction. It is also important to note that, this is one of three times the narrator really seems to feel connected to the story.

The lack of reliability in the narration also leads to both a revelation and an obfuscation of the nature of the characters in the piece. The revelation happens especially in the character of the narrator, who despite feeling separated from most of the events of the story does in fact reveal multiple aspects of himself in his observations. The first time he really seems connected to the story happens on page 388, when he mentions the interview with the "champion of the drug LSD". The narrator mentions that he feels pity for the man. Another sign of his connection with this event is the switch of tense to present tense. The idea that his pity is self-reflective "doesn't" occur to him rather than "didn't" occur to him. Could this be a suggestion that the scene continues to play in his head, even after the events of the story (or even perhaps because of the events of this story)?

On the other hand, the lack of a reliable narrator obfuscates a lot about the other characters in the piece. The most prevalent example is that of Nurse, whose name in the piece seems an attempt by the narrator to make her a nonentity. However, even the character of Georgie could come under question. With the lack of trust that develops between the narrator and the audience, there is a question of how much of Georgie's actions are a result of a distorted or piecemeal perception of the character, especially after the narrator takes the drugs from Georgie's pockets. Even before that moment though, Georgie is shown having likely taken drugs. This could mean that we never see a true depiction of Georgie in the entire piece, but rather one that is always altered by substance use on either the character's or narrators part.

So far, I have mentioned two of the three scenes in which the narrator seems to be active and emotional rather than passive and accepting. The final of these scenes was the final section of text where the narrator comes to the realization of the difference between Georgie and him. The key phrase in that text is the final sentence of the short story: "I save lives" (Johnson 395). This is Georgie's response to his line of work, which is to assist in ways that have no risk to the patient and can be done by pretty much anybody. The difference then likely does not lie in role but in attitude, a difference in attitude that is blatantly obvious, even through the obfuscation of the narrative. Throughout the entire piece, Georgie has been an active character, playing a part continuously and never being a simple observer while the narrator has been passive the entire time, only feeling a connection when the scene was directly related to him.

The difference in attitude is simple: Georgie is active and believes what he does is important enough to matter while the narrator does not. That is the difference between them that I see.

...Do Us Part.

            I feel his hand push itself between my back and the cushion of the couch behind me, and in a matter of seconds, my husband has his hand around my waist as we watch a movie. We both smile, his wider than my own, before both turning back to the screen before us.

            The wife, a straw-haired, middle-aged, but still attractive woman, walks into the kitchen to face her husband, an overweight slob with too much facial hair. They begin the same argument that has happened three times before, and each hurls insults at each other.

            Before long, the sound of a slap permeates a sudden silence, and I find myself turning my face in time with her, as his hand strikes her cheek.

            I see my husband, and he’s laughing. “D’ya see that, Mag? Maybe that’ll teach her to treat him more like you treat me, right?” He squeezes me closer to him. “You’re my little buttercup, y’know that.” I give another smile and nod my head.

            “That’s right, dear. I love you, and nothing could change that.”  He ends his thought with a flash of a wide smile, loosening his grip on my waist before we both turn back to the television.

            The attractive woman is now on the ground, back touching the cabinet doors below the sink. She is using the countertop to support her weight as she pushes her body back up onto her feet. They’re both still yelling, but the woman is shaking. Her hand wraps around a handle protruding from the pile of unwashed dishes in the sink.

            The man is halfway across the room, but she reaches him before he even finishes another sentence, and his snarling is ended with a loud clang.

            “What’re ya doing? Get back up. Show her you’re in charge! Mag, I haven’t ever seen a more pathetic man in a movie. Aren’t you glad you married me instead?” His hand grabs mine, and we sit in silence for a moment, watching the credits float from one edge of the screen to the next.

Lydia Davis - "Television"

Music suggestion for this reading: Amy Macdonald - This Is The Life

Well, I must admit that while I wasn't particularly enthralled by this piece, I believe that Davis did manage to create three different, distinct characters. In the persons One, Two, and Three (named after the respective part in which the person was the narrator), I can see distinct differences. These appear mainly in Davis', albeit clever, use of line breaks and white space and in the opinion of the three characters.

Person One chooses the path of acceptance and unity with the televisions. Person One, from the beginning, explains that she believes television to be exciting, equally exciting to dead people walking outside her windows. She has created an emotional connection with the characters on television, and through this she is able to escape but not lose her full attachment to her real world. This attachment begins to blur in Person Two's view of television. Person Two criticizes television, while still passively accepting it. The line breaks in the narration of Two's narrative simulate the constant changing of channels, each paired with small blurb, an observation of what is on television. Finally, Person Three uses television for pure escapism from daily life. To Three, television is a completely different world where life is so much more simple and less-boring that real life. Everything unnecessary is skipped over, and everything is important to the continuation of life. There is no breaks, no dull spots. The important parts of life are compacted into one hour and twenty minutes of narrative that occurs in one day of Three's life.

Perhaps one of the things that I find most fascinating about the construction of this piece is that it turns the character most-receptive of the power and excitement the escapism of the television into the character that most keeps hold of reality while watching it. Unlike with Two and Three, both of whom end the passage still talking about the television, One ends the passage talking about her family watching the television and how happy it makes them. She is observing the television, but she is not engulfed by the television. She never leaves the real world but instead allows the television to affect her real world and bring her time together with her mother and husband. This surprise that one only realizes when one reads through the piece a second or third time is a subtlety that I'd love to have when comparing character's points of view.

I'd also love to have her clever use of line breaks, white space, and length to give a sense of character. As I previously mentioned, both the line breaks and use of white space in Two's narrative seems to simulate changing stations and a lack of attention to the content in front of the character. This shows the dismissive attitude that the character has of the content s/he is viewing. Character 3's trick in construction is even more subtle. It looks the most traditional, but it is also the shortest and only mentions the high points of the night, condensing the night into two paragraphs and one closing statement, much like the movies that s/he envies and is describing.

Overall, I would say that this piece has uses of both white space and line breaks that I've love to bring into my work, and without her talent at constructing a voice through word placement, word choice would make the characters all sound like they similar voices.