#561 Underfed- Susan Steinberg
Have you ever sat next to somebody at a bar who has just
taken a hug line of cocaine? That is what this story is like. It is a non-stop
ramble from the onset. In fact the whole story is a single paragraph with no
periods. The statements are separated by colons and semicolons. The story even
begins and ends with a semicolon making is seem like we entered somewhere in
the middle of this coke-fueled diatribe, this late-night drunken confessional.
Each statement begins with “I,” “I’d,” or “I’m” adding to the self-centered
tone.
The narrative bounces from subject to subject focusing on
her family or the man she took home from the bar. As many substance-filled
blatherings, it ranges from pure rationalization to oddly poignant and honest,
like this passage about her not wanting to go hiking with a boyfriend:
“I wasn’t adverse to dirt; I was adverse to something else:
like the pressure of having to pretend I cared about a bird, a stone, a star:
like the pressure of having to be so fucking nice: like the pressure of having
to be a certain type of guy when I was just a certain type of girl;”
I appreciate the style here. I don’t want to call it fresh
or original because she isn’t the first author to write a story like this, but
as someone who reads short stories everyday, it is refreshing to be out of the
box a little—and it works. I don’t find it different for the sake of being
different. Two stories in and I am enjoying this collection (spectacle).
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