#17- Halfhead Bay (2008) Nam Le
Clocking in at 70 pages, this is definitely a longer form
short story. Stories of this length
sometimes struggle with identity, caught in a no-man’s land. They either should have been developed into
longer novellas or culled down into something more traditional. That said, 70 pages seems to be the exact
right amount of space to tell the story of Halfhead Bay.
This is a very pleasurable read, even when the topic get
less so. Like most of what I’ve read
from Le, the plot comes right out of a “Short Story Writing for Beginners”
guide book. Jaime is a High School
student on the fringes of the in-crowd, falls in Love with a popular Girl,
angers her boyfriend, has troubles at home that distracts him from the big
game. Sound familiar? Halfway through I had the sudden urge to see
if Netflix was streaming Three O’clock High.
However, because his writing is so powerful, and his craft
is so well honed, and his characters so richly developed, readers soon forgive
the simple premise and look deeper into the characters well represented in this
collection. The family struggles like we
all do with life decisions and taking sides; Outsiders vs. Local, friends vs.
family, opportunity vs. comfort, even obviously team vs. team.
Jaime himself has a hard time seeing these as decisions. His
football nickname is “loose ball Jamie.” We hear later that “It means he doesn’t go
hard…I’m not saying he’s gutless—but he freezes.” The coming of life story or
the right of passage story always involves the dilemma of choosing vs.
following.
The imagery and metaphor in this story is done beautifully
and subtly. Things like smell comes off
like natural descriptives until you see it develop into an actual theme. The
town always smells of fish, or mud or dead animals. Everyone has dirt on them except for
Allison, his love interest and cause of his biggest threat. She always wears an immaculate, untarnished, white
uniform. Whether we are to believe Jaime
sees her character as unblemished or that is how she wants herself to be seen
is up for interpretation
Notable Passage: “This was where she loves most of the time.
He felt toward her an immense quantity of love but it was contaminated by his
own venom, made sour.”
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