With a horrendous headache, I lay down upon the couch and finally got a chance to do some reading. First story in the latest Confrontations issue, Fall 2003/Winter 2004, although I’ve skipped around and already read some of the others.
I put it down several times, it seemed a bit dragged out, made me anticipatory and eager, but frustrated as there seemed to be no conflict, nothing being built up into, until the end. The story is About Oil, by Karen Malpede, and is the first chapter of a novel. Ms. Malpede is quite credentialed so I defer to opinion and reserve judgment of the writing, putting down my disappointment to my headache.
Covering a period of about one year in the protagonist’s life from the destruction of the World Trade Center Towers, it reads like a fictionalized account of the writer’s political feelings, but in too journalistic reporting a form. Basically it follows the character, Daniel, in his mental stress after narrowly missing being killed at his office on the 104th floor simply by having errands to run and arriving late. He becomes obsessed with digging up all details past and present relative to both the terrorist act as well as the state of the union and spends almost all his time on the computer both hunting down information and eventually e-mailing every member of the House and Senate to seek their help in ending the war in Iraq, blaming President Bush and focusing his hopes for a return to sanity on Senator Paul Wellstone who alone voted against the war. Wellstone is killed along with his family in a plane crash, and our protagonist, now feeling completely alone, drowns himself in the river nearby the site of the missing twin towers.
First, there’s the author’s perception of real events. Then as I read this story, mine–both my general views on life as well as being able to relate to the event as something that is current. Then, there is the need to verify the facts and figures related in the story. And then, this: Is the story simply relating events in narrative form, or is it this–what happens when someone becomes obsessed with an idea, as Daniel did.
Interesting. While the reading seemed tedious, so are Daniel’s efforts as his obsession grows. Maybe this story is more skillfully written than I first thought.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology