Young Writers Society

(A/N: I was thinking of spliting this into two parts so it's a bit easier on the eyes, but it's really not the kind of story that can be split like that, and I don't want separate critiques on the two portions. So. By the by, this is very much a vignette.)

Bridges

I just couldn't get the thought of Great Grandma Theda lying in the throated plush of the open coffin back in Mobile out of my head. I couldn't shake the thought of her slippery hands, shelved by arthitis, her loose-fitting flower print dress, the way her face sagged like a summertime hammock, the delicate hieroglyphs of age whittled into her skin, foreign to me, but inscribed, I was sure, with the intentions and vehemence of an egyptian curse. Mother made us look. She said that a funeral was as good a time as any to get to know your relatives. Nice to meet you, granny, I said to the corpse. I listened for response as the chapel bells of the drafty church tolled, their notes dolorous and hanging from the rafters like uvulas. My fourteen year old elder brother Nat stared at her for a little while with vague interest, and then asked Mother if he could smoke a pipe with the other men out on the porch.
Personally, I think she was faking it. I think she just wanted people to feel sorry for her.
If that was the case, then she was buried alive. Of course, that kind of stubbornness would make perfect genetic and familial sense.
Mother, Theda's great-granddaughter, had been called down to Mobile because she was in the will. Granny Theda left her a set of expensive china, a painted pygmy war party of porcelain, and a large Grandfather clock, its face designed to be a half-sun, half-moon, its insides cluttered with gears and chains and pulleys and weights, groaning its chimes like symptoms. Theda also left Mother 1,000 dollars, which was the main reason that she packed up three kids into a brokedown stationwagon, pistons kicking like the little feet of wombed unborns. We needed the money. Mother would never say it, but I wasn't stupid – we were dirt poor. The little farmhouse we had outside Alma, Georgia was in a sad, terminal state. White paint a peeling stamp collection, a rust-sealed old tractor pointed east like a monument to the dead, uncared for cornfield of twenty acres, the bent old stalks creaking like bones aching as the weather changes. Our porch sagged, we boarded up three windows because we couldn't afford to replace the glass, and our condemned barn by the road housed a brothel of stray cats.
There was always enough food, of course. Mother couldn't keep up on twenty-acres of corn, but she did well enough on a small plot of backyard land where she tended tomatoes, green beans, bell peppers, potatoes and carrots and zucchini during the summer. She was going to use the money left behind by Theda to renovate the house, buy me and Nat a bunk bed, and see if she couldn't get some livestock either. Farming is in our blood, she'd say. Blood as thick as mud. Good, silty melon-growing mud.
(Mother later pawned the tea-set to buy us a communal Schwinn bicycle. But we kept the Grandfather clock. It stooped against our naked walls until I left the house, immune system of pendulum, droning out the obituary of seconds, minutes, quarter hours.)
We left Mobile in the stationwagon at four o'clock that afternoon, with the grandfather clock tied down to the car roof with twine. Mother needed to be back in Alma, a seven hour drive, at eight o'clock the next morning for her job in the textile factory. As we left Theda's old plantation-style house with big-boned colonnades, a sprawling, sabbath afternoon verandah, and bearded bayou trees that crouched like griots, the sun was gloating on the horizon. Apple trees lined the boulevard, and I wanted more than anything to avoid the long trip home and laze under those trees, eating an apple that crunched like an april morning, to fight with the thick, plugged locusts for a piece of the silence.
Instead, we banged and popped onto Route 5 and headed past Polecat Bay where I got a good glimpse of the Gulf Coast for the second time (the first being on the way down). Fishing boats, shallops, sloops pumping on the horizon, white and dragging like the bridal-train carriers for the oncoming evening. Waves prying open the beach like crowbars. The docks jutting out where I could imagine men slitting open the bellies of caught fish to spill their lugging viscera, scales rubbing off on their hands and face like showgirl glitter. I could taste the salt on the air. I felt the sand grinding under my teeth, heard the rust-clang of sea-bells and the seagulls croaking like coffin-hinges. I was sure that when I was old enough, I'd quit good old Alma and come live on Mobile Bay, where I'd knit fishing nets and smoke a pipe and live in a house that was so close to the sea that it would require a repainting every six months from being worn down by salt and wind.
We picked up speed on the highway. Mother was humming. I could tell she was tired, but she looked beautiful in the afterlight, red hair starting a brushfire in the air, small-mouthed, her collar bones sealing the open envelope of her chest. I think what I liked most about Mother was her wrists, and the blue veins and how they were always so close to the surface, like forgotten words on the tip of a tongue. She was humming something jazzy, rag-timey. We had gotten a sackful of peanuts and apples to eat on the way home, mostly as something to keep Mother awake.
Nat was reading a battered copy of The Invisible Man and eating the peanuts whole, shells and all, and tapping the back of my seat with his sneaker. Marcy, my seven year old sister, was watching the Bay and the little shanty negro towns along Route 5. There was a profusion of poppies along the road. They were split open and sore-looking, like candy-rotted teeth. The sun set them on fire, and Marcy watched with the fascination of a kid seeing a match lit for the first time. The road skipped under our tires. Nat thumped on the seat. Crunched peanuts. Turned pages.
“Hey, Nat. Knock it off with your foot, will you?”
“Jeez, princess, wake up on the wrong side of the pea?”
“Just bothering me, is all.”
“It's a massage. For your butt. Enjoy it.”
“Knock it off, Nat,” said Mother.
“This is going to be a long trip, ain't it?”
“Keep it up.”
Nat looked at his watchless wrist. “And...six hours, fifty-six minutes, forty seconds until I can do whatever the hell I want to with my foot.”
“Hey, what'd I tell you about that heathen mouth of yours?”
“Save it for Sunday school. I know, I know.”
I stared out the window, smirking. The poppy fields gave way to great washes of cotton that shushed in the air, hot and white like the santa annas. Unfurled, shaken-out, thin and wiry as Theda's close, wooly hair. Tractor mastadons trundling through the brainless boles. Negroes watering the rows, their genealogy soaking into the earth, the shadows of the road trees bending over the cotton like their plantation-owned ancestors and picking, picking, their fingers so good at it that they could glide over a cotton plant, pick it clean and knit the seeds out of the boles and have hundreds of pounds of it per person harvested by sundown. Mother once said that there was so much cotton in Alabama that God used it as his pillow when he took his Sabbath naps.
We took byways and back-routes until dark. The station wagon was weighed down by the Grandfather clock and already hindered by its derelict engine so that we couldn't squeeze out more than forty miles an hour out of it. It's the backroads of the southern states that are always the most colorful. Lantern-hearted shacks, trucks with confederate flags ruddering behind them, a little negro boy herding a parade of sows, most with milk-swollen mammalia yoking under them. At eight years old, a friend of mine and I once wanted to raise pigs. We had an old truck-bed shell in my backyard that we would use to keep them in, feed them the stale bread thrown out by the grocery store every saturday and then sell their hocks and shoulder meat and ribs at the local 4H auction for enough money to buy a transistor radio or a couple of Salvation army bicycles.
Unfortunately, it never came to fruition. Mother forbade me from raising pigs. She said that pigs would turn everything within a half-mile radius into a malodorous wasteland. That flies would come like a plague of egypt. It was probably for the best. As a lineal farmer, my place was to scrape the earth, worry the land with furrows, plant good, honest seeds and watch them turn into squash and okra. I watched the little Negro boy, and the pigs, and my dream of being a raiser of pigs departing, and the sun broke itself over the iron hills.
Fireflies emerged, gentle and holy as papal kisses. Nat was asleep behind me. Marcy was talking to Mother about school in the fall and what it was like and what to expect. She was starting first grade at the Alma elementary school. She would have to walk six blocks and cross a set of railroad tracks to get there, as Nat and I had done, which was ironic, as there was a grade school practically next door to us. Of course, it was a Negro school. Run-down, cinderblock and concrete Alcatraz. Black, solemn faces peering out of the windows, like streetlamps extinguished for the morning, but on the playground sounding as any playground would – hopscotching, swing chains rattling and creaking, hand games, gossip, flat-skinned rubber balls against the concrete walls of the school. Fighting, sweating, grinding, scraping, spitting.
“Why can't I just go there, Mom?”
“Because the one on Peach street is better. Trust me.”
“All my friends are going to the one by our house.”
“All your friends? All your friends are going to Alma Elementary.”
“Those are the church kids.”
“What about Lacey? You don't play with her any more?”
“Lacey plays with dolls. And goggles at boys.”
“Already, huh? Well, it doesn't matter anyway, because the judge wouldn't let a little white girl go to school with a bunch of coloreds. Thank God for that.”
“Do they have kickball at the other school, Mom?”
“Sure, honey. They even got kickball in Alaska.”
Marcy laughed hilariously. “Eskimos can't play kickball!”
The car started smoking around seven-thirty, two hours or so out of Alma's city limits. We pulled into a fill-up station with an adjoining (and providential) garage, banging pistons, valves moaning a carpal tunnel. The lights above the station-front porch stammered their incandescence, and summer evening moths touched against the naked bulbs as gently as the fingers of a blind woman in quiet facial tracery. The mechanic came out, our hood popped open like a baby grand's, and his hands played a clumsy Chopsticks on the spark plugs, gaskets, fluids. He talked out of the side of his mouth, and was smeared with oil, the only clean parts of him being the creases in his middle-aged neck that cringed to open pink, well-fed skin when he scratched his chin.
“Yeah,” he said.
Mother shivered in the cold, rubbing her hands against her arms. Nat and I kicked at rocks – Marcy slept in the stationwagon. “Yeah?” she said. “What's up?”
“Normally, I'd reckon it's just a problem with overheatin and tell you to fill the radiator with a gallon of water, but you've got a whole helluva hatful of problems under here. I could fix it right up in a few hours. How's that sound?”
“How much is a few?”
“Baby, I'm here all night. Maybe four, three?”
Mother looked back at Marcy sleeping in the car. Nat and I had our hands in our pockets. Nat spat sideways.
“If we just added water, would we be able to make it to Alma?” she asked.
The mechanic shrugged. “You made it this far.”
The fill-up station had an old hand-pumped well along the side, and Mother had us fetch a bucket of its iron-tasting coolant, creaking watery syllables. The night sidled in beside us, the branches of the trees casting phylacteries over the relic stars that multiplied and replenished the celestial sistine. Nat made me carry the bucket. It was heavy and I had to carry it between my legs, waddling, careful to spill as little as possible.
The mechanic stood with his hands in his jumpsuit pockets watching us leave as we hit the road again, our grandfather clock's bells and chimes grumbling softly, like an upset stomach.
I could never sleep well in cars. Nat checked out with Marcy, I pressed my forehead to the window glass of the car, and Mother munched on peanuts. We were alone on the road, except for a few long-haul trucks, their headlights pealing out of the darkness, solitary and feeble, like servant's bells rung. Our car rattled gutlessly up the Georgia hills, driving through sleet-storms of night moths. We started across a low swampland bridge about a quarter of a mile long, and very narrow, so that maybe one and a half cars could squeeze across it at a time. Mother told me stories about some of the road trips she had been on – once all the way to California where there were vineyards and olive trees and cranberry marshes for miles on end. It was on that trip, she said, that she had met Dad and fallen in love and had the most wild time listening to the underground negro jazz – the sidewinding saxaphones, battered trumpets squalling like alleycats, and every jazz joint smelling of valve oil and cork grease and marijuana. She, of course, forbade me from ever stepping foot in California – said it would suck the good lord right out of me like poison from a wound. And, besides, she wanted a preacher in the family.
“But I thought I was supposed to be a farmer...”
“No, no. See, that's what you're inclined to do. You can do whatever you want, it's just in your blood is all. All those greats and grandpas all were farmers and tillers and laborers of the land, sweating their brows out. Who needs salt when you've got sweat? daddy always said... 'Salt seeks salt' – I read that in a poem once. What does that mean? Huh? It means that those of a certain kind have got to stick together is what, birds of a feather and all that jazz. But a man of god would be a welcome change, that's for sure. Maybe you could sneak a little religion into your – ”
The engine let out a tremendous bang and smoke poured out of the hood, and the strait-jacketed grandfather clock tottered sideways. Mother gripped the steering wheel and cursed and pulled to the side of the bridge. The car wheezed to a stop, the pistons sang and chuttered like a foot-peddled sewing machine. A long-haul truck thundered past us, and the stationwagon swayed back and forth in its wake.
Mother swore again. Marcy and Nat woke up, rubbing their eyes and asking what was going on.
“Stay in the car,” Mother said.
She got out, slammed the door, and popped open the hood. The engineparts gurgled and choked like the spit valves of brass instruments. Another truck howled by. I swear I could feel the bridge trembling.
“At this rate, I'm gonna be the oldest ninth grader in Alma by the time we get back,” Nat said and climbed out of the car. He stood by Mother under the hood, and Marcy asked me how far we were from home.
I shrugged as I stepped out of the car and onto the bridge and the night. “A couple hours, I think. Stay in the car, okay?”
The evening was chilly, but windless, and the paper moon afloat like a wish lantern, and a bee box of stars, meshed, ordered, dripping their light. Crepuscular birds rutting in the stumpy swamp trees, which were marble-white and limbless, like decapitated and naked roman statues. I leaned over the railing of the bridge, and the swamp below was sluggish and yawning, swallowing up the reflected light of the stars. Mother went around the back of the car to the trunk to look for a toolbox, and Nat walked over to stand beside me.
“You know what's down there, right?” he asked.
“What?”
“Gators.”
“Yeah?”
“Gators that have lived on stupid kids like you who lean too far over the rails of a bridge for years and years.”
“I don't believe it. They've only got gators in Florida.”
“Well Gatorbait, in case you didn't notice we're less than a hundred miles from Florida.”
Mother yelled, “Didn't I say to stay in the car? Nat, go around to the driver's seat and try to turn the key, will you?”
I went to stand by Mother at the engine, which was wrapped in shadows and oil and moaning like some tomb-sent, mechanical Lazarus, as Nat went around to the steering wheel. I knew very little about engines. Dad, having left when I was six, never had a chance to give me that virile and oil-stained instruction that every self-respecting boy was an apprentice of by teenhood. I think I maybe knew how to check the oil. But it didn't matter to me. I had several more years until I was old enough to even worry about driving a car. Mother told Nat to turn the key. He did. The engine choked and gurgled like an unburped baby. Mother told him to try again, and the result was the same. She tucked loose hair behind her ear and was silent, listening to the sound of the nightjars and whippoorwills unwind into the night, rustling on their branches, nervous and folded like hands in confessional. Shadows plumped on the swampland – strange fruit that weighed everything down, rotten tabernacles stinking. Mother was more tired looking than I'd ever seen her before.
Marcy was out of the car by now, too. She tugged at Mother's skirt. “Should we say a prayer, Mom?”
Mother smiled thinly. “Well, ain't that sweet of you. Sure, honey. Let's say a prayer and get ourselves out of this mess. I sure don't know what the hell to do. You want to say it, honey?”
She was sweating as she folded her arms and her forehead glistened in the moonlight, and the headlights of an oncoming vehicle. Except, this car didn't blast past us like the trucks before, but slowed down, the engine fluttering and rummaging a bit like ours. The car pulled up beside our miserable prayer-circle and a man shouted out of the open window, “hey, you folks need a lift or something?”
Mother grinned and waved. “Mister, you're an angel. We could use all the help you got.”
The car drove forward a little and pulled off to the right in front of us. A man stepped out of the car, unfolding his massive body from out of the driver's seat to stoop over his car. Fireflies spat and fizzled like breakfast grease around us and the man slouched over to our car. He grinned. That was the only part of his face we could see – a summer melon-slice grin that split open his face, which was as black as the swampland around us.
“What's the problem, ma'am?”
Mother looked up at him. She hesitated. “Well, our car won't run and I've got to be at work in Alma tomorrow morning bright and early.”
He nodded easily, his voice smooth rhythmed and slippery as steppingstones.
“Shore, ma'am. I'm heading that way. You need a lift? You need some help getting this car off the bridge?”
Mother smiled. “Yes mister. That'd be lovely.”
Nat and I and the night-grown samaritan pushed the brokedown stationwagon mounted by a cadaverous grandfather clock for ten minutes and he barely sweated at all and told us stories about car mishaps and smiled, smiled, smiled into the night as we laughed and sweated and pushed with him into the night.
Mother hummed jazz.
The bridge swayed beneath us, murmuring and rocking and nodding to sleep.

Hi Kylan!

I think this was such a feelgood story. I probably say this everytime I comment on a work by you, but I really liked the atmosphere you set and it felt real, like I was there stuck on that bridge myself.

The car drove forward a little and pulled off to the right in front of us. A man stepped out of the car, unfolding his massive body from out of the driver's seat to stoop over his car. Fireflies spat and fizzled like breakfast grease around us and the man slouched over to our car.

This sounds repetitive because of all the "car"s.

He grinned. That was the only part of his face we could see – a summer melon-slice grin that split open his face, which was as black as the swampland around us.

I love this. It's probably my favourite description in the story.

“What seems to be the problem, ma'am?”

Undoubtedly there are people who would actually say this, but to me it sounds odd. I'd just say "What's the problem?"


Some of the parts where there are several paragraphs in a row without any dialogue are perhaps slightly tedious, even though well-written. Also, one thing that disturbed me a little was the fact that there are quite a lot of "big" words and similes throughout the story, even though it's from the point of view of a young boy. I mean, I know you can use them, and I savour it, but are they really something a -- what, 10, 12-year-old kid would say?

The dialogue is realistic and I like it. It brings out the relations between the characters very well.

I like the ending very much. It's powerful in a discreet way, and I liked it even more when I remembered what the title was and especially that it was in plural... well, you get it. All in all, I enjoyed reading this, and I'm glad you posted a new story.


Demeter
%

Thanks Demsy!

Yes, I knew the vocabulary would throw people off, but the idea is that it's being written by the main character at a later date, probably as an adult. He makes references throughout to events that occur long after the event portrayed which I incorporated to make it more evident that he is not 10-12 when writing it.

As for the tediousness of some of the dialogue-less paragraphs: I realized that that may have been an issue, too. But, with the long, drowsy, rich writing style, I was trying to communicate a southern, back-porch atmosphere. Also, I've been reading Sophie's Choice, by William Styron, and undoubtedly his verbosity has rubbed off on my story-telling.

Thanks for the dialogue pointer as well!

-Kylan

Hey, Kylan. I know I said I'd tell you what I thought about the story later, but I figured you'd appreciate a review a bit more. Lucky you! I don't review much these days. Consider yourself blessed. Haha. I don't have too many 'nitpicks' to point out, so I'll do those really quick.

I couldn't shake the thought of her slippery hands, shelved by arthitis, her loose-fitting flower print dress, the way her face sagged like a summertime hammock, the delicate hieroglyphs of age whittled into her skin, foreign to me, but inscribed, I was sure, with the intentions and vehemence of an egyptian curse.

This is a beast of a sentence. I'd say put a period after "summertime hammock" (which, by the way, I love that comparison), just to make it a little less tedious for the reader.

“Baby, I'm here all night. Maybe four, three?”

The problem with having dialogue with little or no description following it is that you're not really sure how the character is saying something. When I read this sentence, I couldn't tell if he was implying it as more of a sexual innuendo or just saying 'baby' casually, like some people do. I'm assuming you meant is as more of the first than the latter, but it would be nice to clarify.

Mother smiled. “Yes mister. That'd be lovely.”

This is me just being really picky, but there should be a comma after "yes" and "mister" should be capitalized.


As for the actual story itself, I think it's good. I like that your short stories and poems are kind of a glimpse into one moment of a life and don't necessarily have a complete ending. I do have a problem, like Siiri, with the language and big words. I had assumed that this was being told at a later date, which proved to be correct, but it was still really unclear. You mentioned that you alluded to that several times throughout the piece that this was in the past, but they were difficult to pick up on. I suggest that you add in a bit more. For example, you could easily use what you've already said about farming being in his blood, though not necessarily what he must do for the rest of his life. He's obviously very highly educated and eloquent, judging by his word choices in the story. So what did he become? You could mention briefly when they're talking about them all being farmers what he actually ended up doing.

And character development. Mostly in the mother. I think the more minor characters in this story are very well developed, like the older-brother qualities we see in Nat, and the easy charm of the guy who helps them when their car breaks down. The main character could be developed a bit more, but you can see he's very much the middle child. The quiet, thoughtful one who doesn't talk much. Now, with the mother... I feel she's all over the place. In the beginning, she seemed kind of heartless and selfish. As the story moves along, she hasn't completely lost that, but she seems a lot more warm and friendly. Almost even flirtatious, but we don't get enough of that to know for sure or not. I just don't feel like I understand her or can relate to her. It would be nice to see more from her, and maybe a bit more from the main character.

I like what you're doing with the "southern, back-porch atmosphere", and you can definitely get a feel for that in this piece. This does not mean, however, that you have the license to write very long, long paragraphs of description. They are so nicely worded, but like Siiri said: they are tedious. As a natural instinct, the reader finds themselves beginning to skim. Which is a shame in such a story like this, because the language and writing style is something you don't want to miss out on. You need to focus on finding a balance between that rich, lazy description and a fast enough pace that will keep the reader interested and entertained. I'd like to see perhaps just a bit more dialogue and plot development, and a little less description.

Like I said, you definitely get that lazy, summer evening feel when you read this. That's one thing I admire most about your writing. You can easily evoke a lot of emotion and feeling into a short story. I still think you have a lot to work on, but this story really was an enjoyable read. Ask me again to read something of yours if it's not getting the attention it deserves.

-Holly

Hola, Kylan.

I have come, as requested - like Bitter, I don't do this very often haha. I've been incredibly busy of late, so if this is short, I apologise! Mind you, there isn't very much to say. I really enjoyed this, it's more natural and easy-going than anything I've seen from you, exploring this light place is definitely worthwhile, so keep it up.

That being said, I'm with the girls on this. The vocabulary used here isn't just jarring in the context of the youthful narrator, it's also a little too wordy and bogged down for the simplicity of the setting. Have you read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? Beautiful drawling, lazy Southern writing evoked really well with enviable ease. I'm not saying be childishly simple, just on a few occasions pare it back. Another reason it's sort of a sticking point is because - regardless of whether he's writing it later or not - it's presented through the boy's perspective; we're in his mind, not the man's.

Take a look at the first half of this story - it's a wall of text. After that, you start working in some action and it looks better, reads better, and everything starts to flow so if I were you, that's the section I'd focus on.

I just couldn't get the thought of Great Grandma Theda lying in the throated plush of the open coffin back in Mobile out of my head.

Bitter pointed out that the sentence following this is a behemoth of a mess and you should definitely clean that up. This first sentence is really awkward - it's a simple thought, simple image, overwritten. Cut it down and maybe restructure the opening entirely. The specific and formal 'Great Grandma' as well as 'Mobile' and the descriptions of the coffin all together are too much. Maybe something along the lines of...:

'I just couldn't get the image of the open coffin out of my head. Granny Theda lay...'

You don't need anything more than that because you provide both the location and the specificity of relation later.

Just about the wall-of-text effect in the beginning. One way to combat this would be to take little summarized moments and turn them into little, active scenes.

Nice to meet you, granny, I said to the corpse. I listened for response as the chapel bells of the drafty church tolled

So, let's bring this out into something more active. Break up the text, gets rid of the passivity, makes it more immediate and all it requires is some speech marks " " and a line break.

Mother, Theda's great-granddaughter, had been called down to Mobile because she was in the will

Now, if you ignore my advice about the opening, this here is repetitive. We already know that the Mother is the great-granddaughter courtesy of your specific titling in the first line. However, if you do change the first line, this quote here is perfect for seamlessly introducing more information. Together though, it's too much, so pick one!

You have, following this, a whole section that's just straightforward exposition. Later on, you do a great job of showing us the characters through their speech and actions - it's a wonderful snapshot of a family but the set-up takes much too long and the whole 'we were dirt poor etc etc' was too info-dumpy for my liking. Now, the actual scene of a family driving home from a distant funeral has been done to death, but that's not what's important here.

Basically, to sum this up, because it's 1AM and I'm tired, you have lots of moments that you've summarised in straightforward exposition - dialogue with the dead, state of the family, father leaving, etc - that could be turned into active, flowing scenes against the lush backdrop of the South which you evoke so well. Some of the sentences are overlong and not all because of awkward phrasing and extended vocabulary but just because there are too many words trying to get the job done. Like the first sentence for example.

In any case, I really like the story. It's a nice snapshot and the final image of them, sitting by a bridge with a smoking car beneath the stars is really quite wonderful. Streamline this, and it could really be something special.

Hope this helped,
Cheers

This piece was a bit of a problem for me only b/c it was so long and that drew my attention away. You don't want that from your readers, ever. So work on getting shorter but with depth so that others get pulled into the story and not lost and wanting to get away. Other than that keep it up.

Hey.

Nice story. I agree with the people above about being overdescriptive. Your writing is eloquent, but overdone. However, the vocabulary in particular did not irk me. I caught the drift that this was waaaay back in the past and the kid was older.

He nodded easily, his voice smooth rhythmed and slippery as steppingstones.
“Shore, ma'am. I'm heading that way. You need a lift? You need some help getting this car off the bridge?”

This bit is a little backwards. The description of the voice should come after the dialogue because it's in past tense. He nods, doesn't say anything, and yet somehow his voice was smooth rhythmed and slippery? Description of voice can come before dialogue, as I'm sure you know, but it doesn't work here.

I liked it, and that bit just stood out to me. Although, I will admit that I skimmed a teeny bit near the end. I figured since you've had like 5 reviews before mine that I wouldn't have missed anything terribly important in terms of literary errors.

Keep it up!

Kylan,

There were only a few things that stood out to me as worthy of a correctional eye in this narrative, which I'll point out momentarily. I think you did an excellent job in this; we know enough about the characters (except for visuals) to be able to relate to them.

The first thing I noticed was the narrator's calling of the deceased great-grandmother, and later stating that her mother was the great-granddaughter of the deceased; I understand that as far as some families go, that even the children would call their mother's great grandmother by that title, but yeah, just throwing that out there.

Next, typical of a spelling nazi: – the sidewinding saxaphones, battered trumpets squalling like alleycats, and every jazz joint smelling of valve oil and cork grease and marijuana. She, of course, forbade me from ever stepping foot in California – .

Saxaphone/saxophone.


There was one more small thing, and I forgot it. I'm pretty sure it was a nitpick, so don't worry about it. I was a little confused about the narrator's gender -- for the first half, I assumed it was a boy, but then when Nat kicks the seat, he says princess, so I'm assuming it's a girl. There was a lack of femininity throughout that made me assume so.

Keep writing, dear. I enjoyed it.

June

This piece threw me off a little bit. I enjoyed it, but I do have a few suggestions.

1. Some of your grammer wasn't good. [I'd highlight the bits that I didn't like, but I'm really not in the mood to do so. Sorry ]

2. This is just my opinion, but I think you should seperate it into shorter paragraphs so that the reader will be able to get through it easier.

By the way, I loved how you described the grandmothers hands!

Good work!

Hey Kylan! Sorry it took me so long to get to this. Here are my thoughts:

LOVE.

Srsly. I'm really not inclined to go back and do a hawk-eyed, picky read-through, but my first impression/read-through was an entirely pleasant experience. I disagree entirely with the consensus about vocabulary. I got the sense immediately that this was sort of a retrospective musing by the way that the narrative skipped around in time and space, so it made sense. You did a great job conveying the whole Southern, lazy summer feel throughout. You used detail well, not just with your characters, but in creating an overall mood (specific town names, distances between places, highway names, etc.).

The characters were awesome. I loved the family dynamic, with the mother working her ass off to take care of her kids, and then the three very distinct children. This could definitely be expanded into a novel if you had a storyline in mind. I loved it. Thanks for the read.