The Difficult One

This week I read The Lucky One by Ray Kingfisher.

(Link)

Description:

"A short story taken from the collection: Tales of Loss and Guilt - 16 short stories.
Story details:

An elderly woman is haunted by memories of her escape from the holocaust.

But how reliable are painful memories that have been kept at bay for over sixty years?

And at her time of life, what exactly is she searching for?"

First of all, what's with all the spaces? Shit, man, that's super annoying when I have to press the "see more" button on Amazon to see the rest of the four fucking sentences you wrote.

Also, "Tales of Loss and Guilt"? That sounds like an amazing read. "It's summer break, so I'm gonna kick back with a glass of lemonade and an anthology about loss and guilt. You know, just really relax."

And an elderly woman escaping from the holocau- Wait, what? No. No no no no no. Shit. No, I am not about to write a humour review of a holocaust story, am I?

Am I?

Okay, fuck it, here goes. Put on your holocaust joke hat, because we're fucking doing this.

But first, a joke about ovens.

What did one baked potato in the oven say to the other baked potato in the oven?

"HOLOCAUST JOKES AREN'T FUNNY, YOU TASTELESS FUCK!"

Alright, moving on. Actually to sum up, this story starts with an old lady landing in Hamburg. There is some background done in flashback about how her children are baffled with why she would want to go back and visit the death camp she was in years before, but she feels it is something she needs to do because she is dying of cancer.

There are some emotional scenes that were a bit difficult to get through, like the museum guide struggling to explain that women were raped at the camp when a young girl asks all the wrong questions, etc.

In the end, the woman has a vivid flashback of the camp, and an employee comforts her knowingly as she cries. That's all there is to it. It's short and, well, I'll meet you below for the ratings.

(Insert Holocaust joke here)

Ratings:

Should it Have Been Written?: Turmoil out of 5. I think this may be my only category for today, because it has me so confused, and I can't really separate it out into three separate, snarky categories like I usually do. I guess one could be: Writing Style: 4 out of 5. But there is no joke there. It was pretty damn well written. You know how I always bitch that the background of the story is set up in like some weird triple past tense telling instead of showing format? Yeah, this guy didn't do that. He actually showed everything that happened in the story, and that was great. The emotions didn't fall flat, they were, well, emotional. And the characters were dynamic and each had their own clear personality as well.

The only thing is the set up and the ending. As the description and the beginning of the story quickly establish, this old lady is going back to find some sort of meaning or the answer to the question of why she was spared while so many others died, juxtaposed with the irony of her having cancer now and of course the misfortune of being sent to a death camp in the first place. I feel like that is a good set up, but I'm not sure this story delivers. I'm not sure it doesn't, either. It is one of those questions that doesn't have an answer, and to try to provide some neatly wrapped up ending would come across as incredibly trite. Still, this story just kind of ends. On the other hand, it did make me reflect on all of this just now, so maybe it worked?

And then there is the question of why this man wrote this story. His anthology is fucking called Tales of Loss and Guilt, as I have already poked fun at, and there is obviously a questionable motive behind writing that. I am against guilt porn. I think Upworthy-style exaggerations comparing first world problems to- well, to the fucking Holocaust are almost as immoral as the Holocaust itself. "How Many Women Are Ruthlessly Raped in YOUR Workplace? The Answer Will Make You Shit Blood!" Thanks, Upworthy, for hyperbolizing problems and making any sort of actual issues in the world seem like meaningless noise. You can click "like" and feel like you have done something great and move on to alternating between Farmville and masturbating. At least, that's how I spend my days.

Oh, oh yeah, I was talking about something serious. So, there's that, but there's also the question of whether it matters that this guy wrote this story to make guilt dollars. Isn't it good anyway if it makes us remember the pain and senselessness of genocide so we never again repeat that mistake? Is there ever such a thing as too many reminders of the Holocaust, no matter what the motive is? Isn't the most important thing the reader's reaction, rather than the author's intent? Or is authorial intent much more important than I'm giving it credit for right now? So that's my rating for this story. You can write your response down and leave it on your own blog where I will never, ever read it because I don't care what you think.

One last thing. If you are disappointed with how serious this post is, you probably missed the entire point just now.



If you want more hilarious Holocaust jokes, go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

Predictable Delivery

Wow, time flies. I didn't realize it has been over a month since I wrote a post, even though I normally do one per week. I was busy writing a giant thesis, so my apologies.

For my triumphant return I read Special Delivery by Lia Fairchild.

(Link)

Description:

"From Amazon Bestselling Author, Lia Fairchild
Free flowers every month for a year! Recently widowed Amy was delighted to find that she had won. Flowers had always been a big part of her life. But delivery driver Dave brings more than just bouquets. Can he help Amy find happiness again? Will Amy get even more than she bargained for? Find out in this short story about love, loss, friendship and flowers.

If you're looking for a quick read (only 5k words) with a sweet romantic feel, this is for you."

Wow, a best-selling author. Yes, this is the same author as Vigil Annie and A Hint of Murder. Her titles are almost as clever as my blog titles, and I obviously spend hours straining to find a brilliant pun each week.

Actually I'll be straight with you. From the description, this story is pretty predictable, but for what it is it's really not in the same league as the fucking awful shit that I normally review. For one thing, reading this didn't make my eyes sting--except with overwhelming emotion! But no seriously that was a joke just now about the emotion thing. I don't want to mislead you, I felt basically nothing when I read this. But that's nothing out of the ordinary. Sometimes I cut myself, while I watch videos of puppies getting killed, while listening to Nickelback, just to see if I can still feel.

Anyways, we have drifted from the point. The point is for the first time ever, I am giving the No Fine Print Actual Fucking Author Award to Lia Fairchild! She clearly works on, edits, and markets her material. Like, as if it is a job she actually takes seriously, and that is something I can not say about virtually any other person I have ever reviewed.

Plus, she is obviously a milf, so that is basically 70% of winning me over right there:

Oh yeah, I also read her story, so I should talk about that. Well, obviously this widow lady falls in love with the guy that delivers her flowers each month as part of a contest. On the last delivery she is all confused about her feelings (Yes! This character actually has feelings!) because the dude won't come to give her flowers anymore.

As you probably already guessed, there was actually no contest that she won to get all these flowers. The guy was just trying to make her feel better about her dead husband and slowly they fell in love with each other.

"But wait," you're saying, "isn't that really fucking creepy?" Well... yes! And with 99 point fucking 9 percent of shitty romance authors, this would be totally ignored. Not this author. She actually has the lady freak out about the weirdness of the flower guy doing this.

Of course, eventually it is all explained away and they end up fucking into the sunset, but there was a legitimate fucking conflict rooted in her guilt over moving on from her dead husband and the conflict between her feelings for the mustachioed (yeah he has a mustache, gross) flower guy and her traditional stance about being stalked.

Overall, I didn't really like the story, because it was predictable and kind of makes me paranoid about how many girlfriends have wished I would die so they could romantically be wrapped up in some totally well-meaning man's arms for a clean, guilt-free mustache ride, but I am also not a middle-aged housewife. I am just saying that logistically, this story was okay. Congratulations!

Ratings:

That Thing I Always Complain About When People Tell and Don't Show: 3 out of 5. The beginning of this story, like most short stories, is all telling about the past. It's a fucking epidemic! There are a number of pages filling us in on the fact that her husband died and this guy has been bringing her flowers for the past 12 months. Technically this happens all in a morning daydream, but I still say it's boring and fucking alienating. In fact, if you are not a super well-known author, I think it is fair to say you maybe shouldn't even use past perfect tense. Like if you're saying "At that party she hadn't even seen the dick-shaped cake or the penis ice sculpture, and thus hadn't realized both the bride and groom would be men," for a few pages, it is separating us from the story because it's not just in the past, it's in the fucking past's past!

Talking to Herself: 0 out of 5. This lady has some pretty unrealistic dialogue with herself. I don't know, maybe people talk to themselves more than I do, but at one point out of the blue she says, "And what about our texting? I wondered aloud." Well, first of all if you wonder something aloud it goes in quote marks. That's just fucking lazy, because I know she knows that because she does it properly later. But really my issue here is who is ever just sitting there silently thinking and then suddenly says out loud without any conversational prompt, "And what about our texting?" What? You're a fucking psycho. If I caught myself saying something like that when I was alone, I would be obliged to burst out laughing at how ridiculous I look to myself.

Stepping Outside the Box: 0 out of 5. This story really is too neat. I know it's supposed to be, but it pisses me off that there are housewives out there that identify with this main character--a woman who blatantly mentions that she gets through a lot of her life using her looks, who is motivated by getting married before she "runs out of hotness," who thinks of herself as independent yet doesn't actually do a hell of a lot by herself because she likes the idea of "being taken care of by someone." I am mad that there are actually people out there that really have as few problems as this. I mean, yes, her husband died, but like I said that is an obvious fantasy of a lot of people--to get out of a relationship with zero blame and it's soooo tragic. But fuck it who cares because there's instantly a perfect man waiting. It's too much. And don't fucking pretend to me you have never wished your partner was dead so you could get all the sympathy and none of the blame. Admit it.

Admit it, or I won't move on.

Overall: 3 out of 5. Like I said, this story had more realistic emotions and reactions than almost anything else I have ever reviewed. I know it looks like I contradict that like right above this, but actually no. I really believe there are people that identify with this, and I can't blame the author for writing for them. But despite this weird brand of realism, this story was also not entertaining. Like at all. But...it was written by a hard-working lady.

If you want advice on how to let your partner conveniently and romantically pass away, leaving you free and blameless, go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

Just admit it.