I’m getting old and losing patience with any waste of time. I’ve overcome my innate need to finish what I start and so (with a bit of guilt) have learned that if a story is not enjoyable, read a bit more. If it is also not teaching me something about writing and sense of story and style, then quit reading.
So that’s what I’ve done with a couple stories in this issue.
However, in View From the Pines, author George Fahey presents a wonderful character study (Lucille, a lady who, like me, likes to take her coffee outside and ponder the back yard–and of course, she likes Willie so she’s A-okay in my book) of a woman without giving an overdose of backstory. We see great imagery in the backyard where she thinks she sees something, and the bit of history has us speculating exactly what it might be that she may see. I loved it.
Lex Williford’s Beck’s Girls is a coming of age theme but with a nice twist of having a rather peculiar antagonist that keeps us wondering about the character and her allure to the first person narrator/protagonist. What keeps us from questioning it is the fact that the protagonist is a fifteen year-old boy, and his interest is a wispy yet intrigueing twelve-year old girl. We’re also given a dramatic situation, and an unanswered question that hangs in the back of our minds at story’s end. Good stuff.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
Tivo is the death of reading.