"Machine of Wonders" Response

            Kirby, aka “Gumball,” is an eight year old girl sitting in the hallway of a hospital where her mother is being treated. To distract from the familial turmoil occurring around her, she constructs an elaborate fantasy involving the vending machine, which her troubled and distracted father insists is a cigarette vending machine. Kirby believes it is an “Art-O-Mat,” which is confirmed by one of the nurses treating Kirby’s mother’s medical emergency. 

I enjoy the childlike flights of fancy Kirby’s mind went to, especially connected as the first one was to a familiar child story, Beauty and the Beast. I really enjoy her fascination with candy, especially as it pertains to her nickname, Gumball. It rings true for her age and the way she looks at the world. 

However, I have a hard time believing she would be as fanciful, especially in the midst of such a traumatic situation, at eight years old. Certain words or phrases used in the story (not even necessarily by Kirby herself) accentuate this, like “blue-blue” used to describe candy and Kirby’s eyes. Also, the tense of the story appears to change from past to present in transition from the first to second paragraph. The primary issue I have with the story is its point of view. As I’ve said, sometimes the diction is childish and seemingly centered in Kirby’s experience, but certain sentences draw the reader out of her mind and into a distant, almost fly-on-the-wall perspective. This can be seen in sentences like “The ‘vvvvvvving’ is quieter than the buzzing of the florescent lights and the blinking and shushing sound of machines coming from the room across from her, and the soft voices of her father and the doctor discussing something they don’t want Kirby to hear.” The use of more complex words or phrases, like “monochromatic” or “tall conifer of a man,” in contrast to the relatively simple diction of the majority of the story, accentuates this issue. I also feel conflicted about the ending, and the confirmation that the vending machine is indeed an “Art-O-Mat,” whatever that means. I’m not sure why this fact is significant, or why her father didn’t believe her before. I’m also not really sure how this connects to the conflict with Kirby’s mother’s medical condition, or how this shows a change in either Kirby or her father. I feel pretty lost overall regarding the ending. 

"Red Checkered Suit" Response

       The man in the red checkered suit is a withdrawn individual harboring an intense, secret affection for Cheryl, a waitress at a local diner. Over the course of the story, the reader learns of the depth of his fascination, to the extent that he frequently follows her home. One day, Cheryl notices his stalking, and in an accident in their altercation she falls and suffers a serious injury. 

One thing I really enjoyed about this story is the unassuming and casual tone with which the speaker describes events that are ostensibly highly problematic. What seems like a harmless crush turns far more sinister, but the tone still remains outwardly milk and pleasant, which throws the nature of his obsession, and the reader’s growing knowledge of it, into greater contrast. I also enjoyed the hints of dark humor that pervaded “Red Checkered Suit,” in instances like the description of the man’s childhood experiences at the Natural History Museum, where visitors “picked their noses or smacked a rowdy kid when they thought no one was watching.” The appearance of the protagonist himself, in the title of the story, didn’t seem strange to me until his character and mental judgement were called into question. I think even more instances of humor like this would heighten the contrast even further. 

I do have a few suggestions for how “Red Checkered Suit” could be improved. I would like to know the specific setting of the story; this is obviously an urban environment, but I think setting it in a specific city and state could add a lot to the story. Along with setting, I’d like to know how long his ritual of watching Cheryl at the diner has been going on. If it’s been an extended period, if seems odd that she wouldn’t have recognized him or engaged with him. Also, there seems to be a verb tense shift on page 6 from past to present. It goes from past, as in “The air was thick…” to present in “People are starting…”. I like the story from the man’s at the end; I wish this theme which I sensed throughout the story (male violence, physical or whether mental/emotional, against women and onlookers’ indifference) had been more developed throughout. Perhaps I’m looking too far into one anecdote, but its placement as the concluding image seems to suggest I’m not. 

"The Passing Days Only Brighten" Response

          Butch Godfrey is the mayor of Rhodesia, Alabama, a small town devastated by a tornado. In the wreckage, Butch discovers the body of Carver Belvoire, and is deeply shaken. The recovery efforts begin under the aegis of Reverend Jeremy Kelworth, Butch’s anticipated rival for the Rhodesia mayorship, as community tension builds. 

There were a lot of things I really admired about “The Passing Days Only Brighten.” I love the correlation between the Biblical books that Pastor Kelworth chooses to preach from and the tiny town shaken up senselessly by an event seemingly at the hand of God. I think this could be played up even more, perhaps with some of the weirder stuff from Revelations, because the creepy parallels are pretty much endless there. Along the same line, I think the image of the two churches, Rhodesia Baptist and the Redeemed Apostolic Church of the Penecost (great name) facing each other, one ruined and one intact, across the road. I’d like to see this image surface again nearer to the end of the story. One last thing I admired was how certain elements of the story, like subtle weather description, repeated themselves in a way that was noticeable but meaningful. In one place, weather description is used to signal the passage of time (“When the sky turned purple and orange”), which is understandable for a town so heavily affected by it. 

One issue I had with this story is a desire to know more about the protagonist. How did Butch end up the mayor for over a decade, as alienated as he seems to be from the town’s other inhabitants? Does he or did he have a family? The reader is teased with the information that “His house had room for at least four people, but he lived alone.” What is his background with religion, since he seems to have a wariness for it approaching antipathy? Not all these questions need to be explicitly answered, but as I reader I would like more information about Butch. The only other significant issue I have with this story is the ending. I was a little caught off guard by the suddenness with which the ending arrived. The sections leading up to the conclusion focus on Butch’s alienation and apprehension about the eventual mayoral battle, and the last paragraph seems to continue this theme. However, the introduction of the artifacts of Carver Belvoire’s past (especially the yellowed letter that seems to suggest that his son had something to do with the death of Carver’s wife, if I’m not reading too much into it) doesn’t seem powerful enough to provoke the physical reaction they do in Butch, with his “senses blurring.” If they’re not intended to have a powerful effect, then I question why they are included, or how they facilitate a change in Butch’s character. 

"The Mansion" Response

         Lydia is a troubled mother haunted by memories of a past seemingly-abusive relationship and the possibilities of the life she desires for her son, Ronny. While sleepless and smoking, she describes the tiny, cramped dimensions of her current living space, while imagining an alternate idyllic life in the abandoned mansion next door, but eventually concludes the physical and emotional closeness she shares with her son wouldn’t be worth risking for that kind of lifestyle. 

I thought this story made a daring move in attempting to portray the mindset of a woman looking back on an abusive relationship. Lydia seems ambivalent towards Mike in the present, but when examining memories of their life together and the conflict it produced, she can only wonder “Why do I love this man?”. I thought her inner conflict to reconcile her feelings and his behavior was interesting. I think expanding this narrative to include how she eventually found the strength to move out would tell us more about Lydia as a character. 

The timing of the relationship is a little confusing to me, though. Is she still engaged to Mike? If so, why doesn’t she live with him and his children anymore? If their relationship was completely in the past, I would make sure the verb tenses describing it are uniformly past tense. Also, I want to know more about the narrator outside of her relationship with Mike and her son. She mentions she suffers from insomnia and has “terrible stomach problems.” How did these conditions develop? What was her family situation like growing up, that she feels the need to provide for her son so strongly? Where does this story occur, and what is the speaker’s relationship to this place? These are just a few of the questions I have, which could be answered with much more detail about Lydia. As a reader, I would prefer these questions to be answered in dialogue or description, rather than straight exposition, which is how most of the details we do know about Lydia are shown, like “I am a mother of one son and I am single,” which feels almost too blunt. Lastly, there is the issue of the “you” address, which is present in a few places in the story. There aren’t enough clues in the story for me to know who this “you” is, or why Lydia speaks to them with such frankness, or why this address is powerful. 

"Normalcy" Response

       Rose is a struggling college student who, while visiting home, discovers that her beloved mother is having an affair. Her parents become separated, and she counsels her father on how to deal with the demands of work and family alone. Rose's mother visits her, and Rose confronts her about her infidelity. 

       There were several things I enjoyed about this story. One aspect was the parallelism of the beginning and ending, with Rose's mother holding her as an innocent child at the beginning, and Rose holding her crying mother as a maturing adult at the end. As the 11 years between the two have passed, Rose and her mother have almost reversed roles, as Rose matures and her mother commits an immature indiscretion and pays for it with the dissolution of her family. I enjoyed how the Sound of Music playing in the background of Rose's discovery of her mother's affair provided a dark contrast between two seemingly happy families. I think this contrast could be played up even more, to emphasize the drama of the moment of discovery. 

       One thing I struggled to reconcile in this story is the mention of Rose's overeating problem. This is brought up one at the end of page two, and never mentioned again. Though it could just be a symptom of her ill-adjustment to college, I kept expecting the eating problem to come up again, and was disappointed when it didn't. Seeing Rose seek help, eat healthy, and take control of her eating habits could be a visible sign of an inward maturation. Though Rose loves her mother deeply, the mother character remains unlikeable and morally condemned for most of the story. The reader gets a small taste of her reasoning for her mistakes, but this only comes in the form of her summation at the very end. She mentions she felt "bored" with "the suburban housewife life," but this is too general and a little cliche to really make the reader feel any sympathy for her. If her dissatisfaction or depression were mentioned earlier in the story and her character developed further through dialogue and memory, the reader would have more sympathy for her. I also wished for more of a resolution at the end, one that makes it clear how the character has changed, rather than how she will compromise her simultaneous anger and love towards her mother. 

       

"The Savior Sibling" Response

          Mollie is teenage girl whose life is disrupted by the unexpected diagnosis of an aggressive type of leukemia. She suffers through chemo with the support of her family, but no treatment is successful, and the family seeks a bone marrow donor match. Finding none, they decide to have another child on the slight chance it will be a match for Mollie, which the little girl eventually is.

I like the unexpected turn the story took near the end, and how it raised some difficult ethical questions in the mind of the reader. I was unaware of the real-life events this story was based on, but now I’m intrigued to look up the stories of “Anissa and Marissa Ayala,” as your note at the beginning of the story says. 

However, I felt like the story ended just as it was getting really interesting! Since this is based on a real-life, controversial story, use that fact to your full advantage and focus on what makes this an exceptional case rather than just another sad cancer story, which is what it felt like until the last two pages. Ending the story what felt like abruptly after a solution is found raised a lot of questions for me: how will the transplant affect the child? Is a solution like this morally right or acceptable to the family? How has the character changed through her struggles, or is this “savior sibling” an example of deus ex machina? I recommend beginning the story after diagnosis and after chemo so the bulk of the focus could be on the “ethical controversy” and harsh media attention brought up at the very end. Focusing on this ethical conundrum could help eliminate some of the instances of “telling,” rather than showing, I found in the story, which I think functioned as summations to move the story to its most interesting point. One example of this I found was “David and I became closer as a result of everything, which was a blessing.” Rather than give readers this general summary to speed things along, it would be more helpful for characterization to give specific examples of how David helped Mollie, or using his humor to lighten the family mood helped their relationship, or some specific detail like that. 

"A Racist's Cry" Response

            Ansley is a young student who, on the first day of a new school year, finds herself in class with a domineering teacher, Mrs. Sherman. While disciplining an unruly student, Mrs. Sherman opens her students minds about the unacknowledged racism that can occur even within the classroom environment. 

One thing I enjoyed about the story was the immediate characterization of Mrs. Sherman via the dialogue opening. Readers immediately have a clear idea of her uncompromising need for discipline among her students and unconventional teaching style. There were occasional dashes of humor within this story that I also really enjoyed, like when the speaker describes her reluctance to speak based on her wish not “to be on Sherman’s shit list.” I wish this humor had been sustained throughout the rest of the story.

However, I felt some elements within this story were not clearly developed. I was unaware this story was in first person until the bottom of page two, which is the first point the “I” narrator entered the story. The reader has little idea of the narrator’s thoughts or feelings until near the end of the story, except through the narrator’s long section of dialogue in speaking to Mrs. Sherman. Given the tiny role of the narrator, it is difficult to grasp how she changes over the course of the story. Several key details are revealed about the narrator nearer the end of the story, like the fact that Mrs. Sherman is an infamous figure within the speaker’s family. This leads to questions in the reader the story leaves unanswered, such as: How does the speaker’s family know this teacher? Is it through an older sibling? This raises another question, one I found myself asking throughout the story: how old are these students, or what grade are they in? This scene would have far more resonance in a middle school classroom, than a high school one. In addition, the narrator has a seemingly overdramatic reaction to Jimmy’s description of his friend Justin and his girlfriend Ashlee. Jimmy’s description are a little rude, but definitely not deserving of him being condemned as a “horrible friend and boyfriend.” Lastly, the poem Mrs. Sherman read out loud didn’t seem provocative enough to cause such extreme reactions, like shock or embarrassment, among the listening students.