You are absolutely right about Rod’s dinner prep time, and that is actually the place where most people have squirmed and yawned and pointed out repetitive, clumsy prose.
Thanks for the review. Do you want lots hot sauce with your burrito?
Novel Treatments / The Lambent Light: Query and First Chapter (Analysis)
Dear Jud,
In The Lambent Light, Rod is a precocious teenager growing up in a lower-middle-class southern family. He’s an outsider, a brain, and a sexual loner; he also thinks he just might be the second coming of Christ.
After Rod sees a vision of the Virgin Mary, he thinks he must be chosen for the ultimate mission. His recurring dream of a soft, glowing light confirms in Rod’s mind that God is trying to guide him toward a higher purpose. There’s just one problem: Rod is struggling with adolescent homosexual feelings. Enter the new minister of music at Rod’s church, who promises to “help” Rod rid himself of his homosexual thoughts by “weaning” Rod from the sexual experience. When the minister of music—done with Rod—moves on to another church, Rod is left to sort out his confusion and humiliation alone; that is, until the lambent light returns.
I have published poetry and one short story with a university press. Somewhere between literary fiction and memoir, The Lambent Light is my story, which I tell with humor and love for the teenager I once was. Currently I live in Germany, a good distance from these memories, and make a living as a corporate trainer, translator and editor.
Sincerely,
DCAllen
Prologue
At fourteen, Rod’s complete repertoire of wisdom was as follows:
1.Puppies like vodka, but vodka doesn’t like them.
2.Happiness is a warm puppy (however).
3.If you’re happy, it’s quite possible that you don’t know it; but if you happen to be one of the fortunate few who do know it, clap your hands.
4.Cheese makes your booty tight. As cryptic as this may sound, Rod knew it to be true.
5.God always answers our prayers, and usually the answer is no (in the form of silence).
6.You won’t lose anything as long as you put it all in your pocket.
7.Pink and purple = immoral.
8.Sending your overcooked broccoli to Africa won’t help anyone: they’d gag (too).
9.“Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe.”
10.There are a lot of Georgians on our TN highways (and of course all that this suggests).
Chapter One
Diane was as big as a minivan, and her laugh as huffy as the engine of that minivan turning over and over on a frosty morning. huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh. Diane laughed at everything Rod said, and that’s why she was his best friend; Rod never made such comparisons, and that’s why he was Diane’s best friend. Diane was also somewhat of a wiz at math.
Rod and Diane’s ritual, as it were, was to lie on her bed and discuss “things” every weekday afternoon between two and three. Since Diane was on her own in the afternoons, Rod had never seen her father or mother. She had them of course—just not until six. Rod’s own mother was always conked out on the couch “watching” General Hospital, and Rod didn’t understand the general appeal of General Hospital. There was also the small matter of getting his math homework done.
“Here, just give it to me,” Diane said, snatching Rod’s math homework from his lap.
Rod wasn’t exactly defending himself against the attack. Diane worked quickly. She refused to explain algebra equations, which was fine because Rod refused to understand. He was content to wait for his completed homework as if waiting for a cheeseburger (no onions, extra pickles) and fries.
“Done,” she huffed, sat up straight on the bed and swished her Crystal-Gayle-length hair round and round and round as she was accustomed to doing.
A brunette ceiling fan. Rod’s thoughts sometimes shocked him. It was as if something or someone inside his head had said (her hair looks like) a brunette ceiling fan so that Rod wasn’t completely sure if he was all alone inside there. What a weird thought: A brunette ceiling fan. But then the hair settled, and Rod accepted his order with a satisfied smile. Now comes payment. What would Diane want this time? An essay? Grammar exercises? She insisted on a reciprocal arrangement. It had something to do with someone named Ayn Rand, who Rod unfortunately didn’t know. Diane had got a wild hair once and had read a novel on her father’s bookshelf. Atlas Sneezed or something like that. After that “lawng” book, Diane had said, she thought she could do without novels for a while. Rod’s parents didn’t allow him to read novels. The Bible and its choir of concordances were enough.
“Here,” she said and shoved a grammar worksheet under Rod’s nose.
“Would you like me to explain it or shall I just do it?”
“There ain’t gonna be no test on it. Just do it,” Diane said and bounced off the bed. “Shall you want some tea?” she mocked Rod’s articulate voice.
“Yes, please,” Rod whispered, not looking up from the grammar worksheet.
Diane looked over her shoulder and smiled sadly at him. “Sorry,” she said. She rarely laughed at his perfect diction. She wanted to, much more than she did, but she liked Rod. Maybe she loved him. She knew all about him, so she knew their friendship was a romantic dead end; but it was the closest thing she’d ever had—maybe ever would have—to a real boyfriend. Rod was her boyfriend, she thought—that is, as long as she never told him he was. She returned with two half-gallon glasses of tea (no lemon, of course), which she put down on her dresser next to her finished English homework.
“OK,” she said, looking into the mirror, “Let’s try it again.”
“Oh, Diane,” Rod moaned. “Please. I’d really prefer not to.”
“OK, you just watch.”
“I’ll help count.”
“OK.” Diane closed her eyes and spun around (brunette ceiling fan). “I don’t believe in the Bell Witch,” she said and spun around again, her eyes taut black lines above the mounds of her cheeks.
“Two,” he counted. Graceful for her size.
“I don’t believe in the Bell Witch,” Diane said and spun and spun and spun.
“Thirteen. Now open your eyes!” Rod said, standing in the mirror behind Diane. Diane opened her eyes, shrugged. She didn’t see the Bell Witch in the mirror—just Rod. She never saw her. Karen, who everyone at Donelson Jr. High called “Beans,” had seen the Bell Witch in the mirror once; and Chad said he saw the Bell Witch all the time, but Diane didn’t believe—or like—Chad. He called her “Blimpo” and made oinky sounds when she got on the school bus.
“Now you,” said Diane.
“I’d rather not,” Rod replied.
“Uh . . . Rod?—”
“Yes?” The question came more from his wide, wondering eyes than his thin lips.
She had wanted to give her puny, overly articulate faux-boyfriend a bit of advice. Why say “I’d rather not” when “Naw” worked just fine? Why draw attention to yourself, set yourself apart, make differences louder than they were? There was something about Rod – it had to be in those alien, saucer-shaped eyes – that simply didn’t notice how cruel people could be. Being dangerously obese had afforded Diane insight that Rod had yet to grasp. He’s gonna have to grasp it, she thought, sooner or later. “Do it!”
“It never works,” he whined as he switched places with Diane at the mirror.
“It don’t never work for me ‘cause I think I do believe in the Bell Witch. It only works if you really don’t believe. You know that.”
“You count,” said Rod. “I don’t believe in the Bell Witch.” He spun around. Rod did believe in the Bell Witch. In the strictest sense of the word, the Bell Witch wasn’t really a witch at all: She was a ghost, an entity. She’d been deemed a witch around two hundred years ago when anything bad in the spiritual world, and in Adams Tennessee, was a witch. Rod believed in the spiritual world: the host of angels and demons and witches and ghosts around us that often talk to us. How could he believe in a good, living Christ without believing in a real living Bell Witch? Without believing in a world just as evil?
“I don’t believe in the Bell Witch,” said Rod for the thirteenth time. He opened his eyes and looked into the mirror. The image in the mirror shot adrenaline straight to his hair follicles. It was a round, white face with enormous, haunted eyes. There was something lost, or being lost, in those eyes. His eyes. Rod sometimes stared at himself in a mirror so long that the face in the mirror seemed to belong to someone else. Maybe it is someone else. Rod hated mirrors. “I think you have to be alone,” he whispered and lowered his eyes.
“Beans said it’s gotta be dark,” said Diane.
“It’s almost three-fifteen. I should be getting home.”
“Not before I tackle you!” Diane bellowed, bull-dozing Rod onto the bed.
-
Rod came home from Diane’s at three-thirty after his mother’s soaps when she would have the energy to talk. He sat down on the couch next to her quilted body and began telling his mother about something that had happened to Diane at school that day. Diane this, Diane that. Diane lived two streets away from Rod’s house and was Nazarene—which explained why Diane had hair down to her ample calves. Her Nazarenity also explained why Rod’s mother, in her drowsy drawl, disapproved of their friendship.
“You know they don’t believe like we do,” Rod’s mother said as Rod got up to adjust the volume on the TV.
Rod fiddled with a knob on the TV (it was time for Little House on the Prairie). “Who?” he said, sitting down next to her again on the couch.
“That Diane,” she said. “She don’t believe like we do,” she repeated as if to say “That hairy mountain is four times bigger than you, you effeminate dwarf.”
“I know,” Rod said. It was all he had time to say before the french horns started and Mary came tumbling down that grassy hill. Rod and his mother didn’t talk during Little House, except maybe to say things like “Need a tissue?” or “Stop sobbing so loud! I can’t hear what Charles is saying.”
The first commercial break came without tears. It usually took Little House about fifteen minutes to gather emotional steam, but of course then, and invariably, it got very teary. After a tampon commercial and a Richard Simmons aerobic video commercial, the network took twenty seconds to advertise its airing of The Ten Commandments.
“Shoot! Thursday night at eight,” Rod said.
All of Rod’s friends had seen The Ten Commandments when it had come on TV the last time. Although Rod’s father hadn’t allowed him to watch the movie, Rod acted as if he had when his friends talked about it. It was a matter of pride. It wasn’t as if they were going to change the story! He knew the story backwards and forwards, so of course when Diane asked him if he had seen it, he had said of course. But Rod’s family didn’t watch TV after eight, not even for The Ten Commandments. Not for Moses. Not for burning bushes or for Red-Sea partings. Not for plagues or promised lands. Not even for Charlton Heston. Rod’s mother told him this was a matter of principle, but actually it had been a matter of money. Rod’s father sold life insurance, just not enough of it to pay the electricity bill every month.
“Just read the Bible,” Rod’s mother had said.
“It’s all there.” She meant the Bible was free, but the TV cost money—and riled her husband after eight. Rules were rules: no opening the refrigerator just to see what’s in there, no running the water while brushing your teeth, no leaving a room with the light burning, no air conditioning until July, and no TV after eight.
“But—”
But Charles Ingalls was back, and he was dealing with another moral dilemma (and tugging at his suspenders). Rod went over to the TV and turned up the volume.
When the second commercial break came, both Rod and his mother exhaled heavily (neither had breathed since Charles had begun dealing with his dilemma). They looked at each other and burst out laughing at their bleary eyes.
“But,” Rod began again. “I really want to see it.”
“What. Richard Simmons?!” Rod’s mother gasped, afraid of Richard Simmons’ influence on her rabbit-eyed, impressionable son. She was convinced there was something evil and contagious about Richard Simmons’ perm. Rod had made overtures once about wanting a perm, so, at least to Rod’s mother, a certain modicum of fear was justified.
“The Ten Commandments,” Rod humphed, knowing immediately that impatience with his mother’s attention span was not the way to get what he wanted. “If we had a VCR I could tape it,” he added, knowing also that drawing attention to his family’s financial problems (which he didn’t officially know about) was also a dead-end street. “All my friends saw it last year,” he said, remembering too late that all his friends were Nazarene and didn’t believe like us. He wasn’t going to get anywhere in one commercial break anyway, so he gave up.
“We’ll see,” his mother sighed. The front door opened and closed, reminding Rod’s mother that she hadn’t thought about dinner . . . once again. “I guess I’ll make spaghetti,” she sighed but remained horizontal. She could have been talking in her sleep.
“I’ll put the water on,” Rod said. He would miss the end, the emotional release, of Little House.
“Hi, Tiger,” Rod’s father said on his way upstairs to his bedroom. Frank called Rod “Tiger” on days when he’d sold something. Being a salesman, Frank had notes taped to the bathroom mirror like “Confront Failure EVERY DAY!” and “NO is the JUST the BEGINNING!” and “Never give up!”. When Frank tangled with failure and lost, he didn’t call Rod “Tiger”; he threw glasses and plates and stared out the window, or he blocked out the world inside his house completely, favoring the world outside on the tiny black-and-white TV in his bedroom.
“Hi,” Rod said. “Momma’s making spaghetti.” Momma was snoring in the den.
“Great,” his father said over his shoulder.
Rod watched his father march upstairs. He’d gone to Vietnam a slim, attractive farmboy—only a hint of the scared rabbit about him—and come back shaken and potbellied. The bedroom door shut behind him, and Walter Cronkite began to report the problems of the outside world.
Rod put a pot of water on the stove and went to work on his plan for seeing The Ten Commandments on Thursday night. He could “sleep over” at Diane’s, but he knew the concept of the sleep-over only sketchily from The Brady Bunch. He couldn’t really imagine sleeping over at Diane’s. He could sneak downstairs once his parents had closed themselves up in their bedroom, which they often did after dinner. He could drug them so that he could watch the movie in peace. He could hypnotize them and make them forget he’d stayed up all night watching TV.
He took a jar of spaghetti sauce from the cabinet, two hamburger patties from the freezer, two onions from the basket on the counter and the limp half of a green bell pepper from the refrigerator. Chopping and frying, he worked out a slightly more realistic plan: a proposition that he knew would appeal to his mother. He poured some corn oil in the meat he was frying to make it brown faster and then threw the onions and pepper in. It’s Tuesday now. I have two days.
The water was boiling now, so he dropped the whole package of spaghetti into the water. The spaghetti fell into the center of the pot and fanned out uniformly around the edges. Slowly Rod eased the spaghetti down into the boiling water. Rod’s mother wasn’t always (read: ever) so careful. Her spaghetti came out clumped together in foot-long, starchy masses ranging the pasta spectrum from raw to al dente to snot.
“Smells good,” his mother groaned, emerging from her den. Finally, she paused on the top step as if she didn’t have the energy to drag herself into the kitchen.
“It’ll be ready in exactly ten minutes,” said Rod, thinking of how he was going to phrase his proposition. He had two days to convince his parents that he had to write an essay about something on TV (he would have to work on his wording). It would be an assignment, something unavoidable, something compulsory; and if it had to be done, why not something as Godly as The Ten Commandments? It would be an opportunity to witness to his teacher. He had accepted Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior, his Rock of Salvation last year, so it was time he started ministering to the lost, wasn’t it?
The front door opened and closed. Brandon was home; the house was a different place now. Rod’s mother finally lifted her right leg onto the kitchen linoleum. The toilet flushed upstairs.
“Frank! Brandon!” Rod’s mother yelled, officially taking control of dinner. “Dinner’s almost ready!”
“I’m right here. You don’t have to yell.” Brandon said, rounding the corner to go upstairs.
“Well I didn’t see you,” she sighed and lifted her left leg into the kitchen. “Frank!” she yelled. “Frank!”
“What?! For Pete’s sake, Cheryl. Do you have to scream?” Frank screamed back. He was standing at his bedroom door in his underwear, Walter booming in the background.
“If you’d answer when I call, I wouldn’t have to keep yelling,” Cheryl said to herself. “Dinner’s ready!”
“Almost,” Rod whispered.
“In five minutes!” she yelled.
“Oh for Pete’s sake, Cheryl,” Frank grumbled and shut the bedroom door.
“Smells good,” Rod’s mother said. She was stalled in the middle of the kitchen, lost.
“You can set the table,” Rod suggested.
Rod’s mother exhaled heavily and stretched. She was just so tired and down and overweight and under-appreciated to do anything right now, but she would set the table with the plates Rod was handing her. She would go and get the napkins her mother had made from old flour sacks from the linen drawer. She would arrange the silverware that Rod had already polished. She would put out the pot holders that her mother had crocheted, one pot holder for the pasta and one for the sauce like Rod wanted it.
“Fraaaaaaaank!” she screamed once she had put down the pot holders.
“I’m coming!”
“Branduhhhhhhn!” she screamed.
“I’m coming!”
But no one was coming. Rod rolled his eyes and sat down at the table. They went through this every evening. No one came until Rod’s mother was standing at the bottom of the stairs screaming at the top of her lungs and the food was not exactly hot anymore. This really wouldn’t have bothered Rod—Brandon and his father never really added much to the dining experience except an occasional punch in the stomach from Brandon—but eating before the blessing was a no-no. Alone at the table, Rod stared at his cooling pot of pasta. He’d poured a little corn oil over the pasta to keep it from sticking together. He liked to put the sauce in a separate bowl. Something about mixing the sauce and the pasta just didn’t seem right to him. His mother usually just dumped the sauce on top of the pasta. Subterfuge.
Rod’s mother was still standing at the bottom of the stairs. She refused to take her place at the table until she knew the men upstairs were in motion. She licked her finger and wiped a black mark—who knows what it might have been—off the railing. Her eyes wandered up the staircase and then to the left where a crack was working its way down the wall. She’d noticed it last month but had been too tired to think about it. “Y’all come on,” she whined. It was her final attempt, a plea that said she wasn’t angry anymore—just hurt.
Frank turned off the TV and joined Brandon in the hall.
“I don’t know why I have to yell for y’all to come for an hour before you feel like coming,” she said and turned back toward the kitchen.
“I’m not even hungry,” Brandon mumbled and then smirked when he saw Rod sitting at the table alone. Rod was the white sheep in this family.
“Well,” she grunted. Why ain’t he hungry? It ain’t right for a sixteen-year-old not to be hungry at dinner time. He’s on drugs.
“Are we going to drink anything?” Brandon plopped down in his chair.
“Oh,” Rod’s mother hiccoughed and shot Rod an accusing look. “You want tea, Brandon? I think there’s some in the fridge,” she said.
“There isn’t any,” Rod said.
“There isn’t any,” Brandon mocked Rod’s correct English.
Rod wished he could have said “There ain’t none.” He wished he could have felt at home with ain’t, but he couldn’t.
“Well, it won’t take but a minute,” Rod’s mother sighed, already filling up a small pot with water and reaching for the measuring cup, which she filled to the top with sugar just like her mother had taught her. “Rod, can you cut me up a lemon?” She hated woman’s work. She wasn’t cut out for cooking or cleaning. After all, she was a substitute teacher, wasn’t she?
“The spaghetti’s going to be cold,” Rod whined. “Can’t we eat first and then have tea?”
“Don’t argue with me. Just do it,” she barked and dumped a cup of sugar in the tea as it started to boil. He cut the lemon while his mother filled four big glasses to the rims with ice. Never once looking at what she was doing, she clawed and crammed the ice cubes into the glasses. Four or five ice cubes fell to the floor and skated across the linoleum, coming to rest under cabinets, bar chairs and one over-achiever in the den below. She plunked the glasses down on the table and poured the piping hot, syrupy tea over the ice until only the ghostly outlines of a couple of ice cubes floated on the surface of the watery—but still very sweet—tea.
“Lemon?” She sat down at the table and smiled grandly. This was the signal that the ritual of the happy family dinner could begin. She handed the plate of lemon wedges to Rod.
“I don’t like lemon in my tea,” he said, as always.
It was her philosophy that tastes could change. One evening Rod would surprise her and want lemon in his tea, so she always asked. “Well, just pass the plate then,” she groaned. “I don’t know why you don’t like lemon in your tea,” she couldn’t help saying. “I like it.”
When Rod and his mother were alone in the house, they never quarreled about anything. They watched Little House and cried together; they watched Jeopardy and showed off together. But as soon as Brandon came home, she had, he supposed, someone to pit him against. Rod simply waned feminine against the backdrop of Brandon’s rebellious youth, his anger, his squealing guitars – and his capacity for brutality. Rod was sure Brandon hated him -- or at least his tendency to over articulate his language, his desire to please his parents, that little problem of crying when he was sad, happy, frustrated, angry, and pretty much any other emotion. A lot there to hate.
Cheryl examined Brandon’s face. Would he be in the mood to give the blessing? Would he be on her side today? Would he feel like it? He used to be on her side, didn’t he? He used to be a boy scout with merit badges on his mind. He used to help her around the house. He vacuumed the den; he dusted. He had even been willing to wash the windows for ten dollars—once. “Brandon?”
“I don’t feel like it.”
“Rod?” Rod bowed his head and started to pray: “Lord?” he said as if talking to a close friend who might have been hovering just above the table. “Thank you for this food and thank you for my family. Help us to be good and humble servants in these Last Days, and thank you for dying on the cross for our sins. Forgive us of our many sins. Amen.”
“Amen,” Cheryl and Frank said in unison.
“Pass the lemons,” said Cheryl. “I love lemon in my tea.”
Rod rolled his eyes.
“So what did you learn in school today, Brandon?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said proudly.
“I learned how to keep rabbits,” Rod offered.
“I learned how to keep rabbits,” Brandon mocked in a British accent even though Rod’s had been less than British.
“In science class,” Rod drawled, trying to sound as if he were from Nashville, trying to sound as if he were just a nobody from nowhere, trying to sound like anything that wouldn’t agitate his mean brother. Brandon sniggered.
“My father and I built a hutch once,” Frank said as he blanketed his pasta with pepper.
Cheryl’s eyes widened. Frank never spoke about his father. She had told her boys time and time again that the subject of their father’s father was off-limits. Unless he started talking about his father first, they were never to ask. And that’s why Rod knew only three things about his grandfather: 1) he had killed himself with a gun when Frank was nineteen; 2) he had been manic depressive; and 3) when the family didn’t have anything to eat, he had shot a possum in the woods. Oh yes, and now 4) that his grandfather had once built a rabbit hutch with his father. And that’s it; Rod didn’t even know his name.
“Oh,” Rod responded, careful not to ask the wrong question. Wrong questions could send his father into a rage, and Rod didn’t want his sauce to go to waste. “Uh, did you raise rabbits?”
Brandon sniggered. “Duh!”
“Would you like to raise rabbits?” Cheryl asked Rod.
Rod thought about the possible answers and, careful not to scrape the plate with his fork, twirled exactly four strands of pasta. The most honest answer would have been a clear no. He had, after all, his piano lessons, and his Bible study group at school; and—at his mother’s urgings—he was thinking about going out for the track team. Just last week he had gone to the mall to look for a job, and he had found a manager at The Cookie Factory who, assuming Rod was sixteen, had given him one (an insignificant piece of news he hadn’t bothered telling his parents). And then there was back-to-back adult and youth choir practices on Wednesday nights. He opened his mouth and carefully dislodged his perfect twirl of pasta from the fork without scraping. No scraping. Brandon hated the sound of the fork scraping against Rod’s teeth.
Cheryl was still staring across the table at her son, waiting for an answer. Her son was taking quite a long time considering his reply. He was an intelligent boy, but he had the common sense of a nail. She herself could wait all night for an answer—she’d taken a course in adolescent behavior—but she could sense impatience building in Frank’s eating style.
It was all Frank could do to be patient with Rod. He cut his pasta up in a grid and shoved square after square of peppery pasta into his mouth. Cheryl had told him time and time again that he had to be more patient with his sons. Why? he wondered and swallowed a wad of pasta. He didn’t understand the first thing about children, and it was safe to say (at least within the privacy of his own head) that he really had never wanted children in the first place. His mouth was bulging with pasta, his nose itchy from the pepper. He swallowed again without chewing.
The most honest answer, Rod thought as he chewed (careful not to make any smacking sounds), is not going to be the answer my mother wants to hear. Maybe she wants us to do a father-son activity, and depriving him of that experience would make him sad. But perhaps having that experience would remind him of his dead father, and that would make him sadder. Maybe Momma hasn’t thought about that particular aspect of the situation. Sometimes she doesn’t have all that much common sense, Rod thought.
Frank swallowed hard and put down his fork noisily to try to hasten a reply. He was out of patience and tea.
“Rod, honey?” Rod’s mother prodded. “Are you still thinking about it?”
“Honey.” Brandon sniggered.
“Yes,” Rod said. “I mean—yes! Raising rabbits sounds like fun.” What else could he have said?
“Raising rabbits sounds like fun!” Brandon mocked and laughed like an hysterical four-year-old girl. “Pass the lemons.”
Cheryl passed the lemons—at least Brandon liked lemon in his tea—and said, “Raising rabbits can also be lucrative.”
“If you have a thousand of them,” Brandon said under his breath. “Well, I guess,” Cheryl sighed.
“Well,” Frank said. “That was very good, Cheryl.” He blew his nose in his napkin and turned to go upstairs.
Rod ate the rest of his spaghetti. He tried to be careful not to scrape his teeth on his fork, although he hated putting his lips on the fork. A momentary lapse of concentration, and Rod scraped. The blow to Rod’s stomach always came as a surprise and always knocked the breath out of him. Rod’s mother dismissed it with an ironic pout. Sibling rivalry. All brothers fight. It’s just the playful pawing of two furry little lion cubs?
Maybe, but Rod ate his food with tears in his eyes and the terror that one more slip meant another blow.
“Cry baby.”
“Brandon?”
“I don’t feel like it.”
“Rod?”
Rod began removing the plates from the table. He didn’t mind cleaning up. He always thought more clearly when he was busy, and he had to figure out how to bypass that eight-o’clock rule. Something told him it was God’s will for him to see that movie; something told him he was chosen.
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oneshot92 reviewed Version 11 -
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Once again, I have to compliment you on your outstanding work with the characters. Every aspect of your writing compliments them. The narrative and dialogue work so well off of one another, and there is not too much of one or the other.
I especially enjoyed the way you described the relationship between Rod And Diane, through her eyes. It is as if you had a chubby little girl whispering in your ear as you put that to ink. Wonderful job there. I liked hour she secretly viewed him as her boyfriend.
The relationship between rod and his mother has me a little puzzled, only in that I don’t understand why they react to one another differently when alone as when the others are in the house. This may be something that plays out later as the story develops. I did get a clear image as to where Rod’s femanin side comes from.
My only suggestion is the actions of Brandon. I understand why you have him torment his brother so, but if the father is so short tempered, how does he tolerate it? I don’t envision him as one to care how it affects Rod, but I do see it irritating him to a point of outburst. Just a thought. Excellent work once again.
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Marvin reviewed Version 11 -
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good query and prologue. I normally don’t like numbered lists, but this was good. And funny.
“Crystal-Gayle-length hair”—original. and i’m not sure whether or not i should be ashamed of myself for knowing what this looks like.
good opening. Immediate action and character intro. well done.
”...it had been a matter of money. Rod’s father sold life insurance,...”—i enjoy lines like this. they’re clever and convey information in a very clever and entertaining way.
So far, smooth ride. I’m looking for things to pick on, but nothing is passing through my radar.
R.Simmons perm is killing me. KILLING ME. Fun.
wow. overall-
tight structure and fantastic characterization. also, good hook and set-up for Rod to try to see the movie. AND, excellent tension established between Father and, well, everyone, concerning his own father and his reluctance to divulge information. Pop culture references are welcome as a means of establishing a time and, thinking back to R. Simmons, are often damn funny.
criticisms?
none too many. If I had to single out one thing, I would be the “fantastic characterization.” The back-stories and the thoughts and the information we get through the omniscient POV (which I enjoy) is good, however, the preparation of dinner in particular seems almost too heavy and supersaturated. The action is tight and the writing perfect, and yes- the thoughts offered are useful, but that was the one spot that slugged along for me and I shifted a bit in my chair. If anything had to be cut, I’d suggest slicing there.
and again- Fun, funny, great imagery, great set-up. well done, sir.
TnD reviewed Version 11 -
Read 100% of the Item
-The reason we’re on your highways is because you have cheaper gas. (Georgians on TN highways)
-Similes. While they can be entertaining, they seem extraneous here. The cheeseburger (no onions, extra pickles) comment was one that rubbed me the wrong way. To me, it comes off as a passe attitude. I also think that you mentioned that Rod didn’t make comparisons like that, but the narrator has done so twice in less than a page.
-round and round and round => One ‘around’ would work the same here.
-“dangerously obese” => Doesn’t really sound right. Perhaps ‘morbidly obese’ or ‘dangerously overweight’?
-“thirty[,] after…soaps[,] when”
-“if he had” => “though he had” It just sounds clearer that way. I think that’s partly because of the negative connotations of ‘as if’
-Your sense of humor shows with the comments of Richard Simmons. Very nice.
-The over-detailing of the preparation of dinner kind of draws away from the story. Maybe throw the internal thoughts of how to watch The Ten Commandments in the mix. The internal dialogue while cooking dinner would keep the reader interested.
-Rod’s mother => Does this woman have a name? If so, maybe use that instead of the constant “Rod’s mother”.
-White sheep? Don’t you mean black sheep?
-“home, she” => Comma seems out of place here.
-“father’s father” => I think ‘grandfather’ would work here just as well. You’ve painted the picture that he never talks about his father, which shows which grandfather you’d be talking about.
-Thousand what? => Rabbits, sir. Rabbits. Or I’m completely wrong. It’s a possibility.
-You’ve painted a clear picture of Rod and his mother. However, Frank and Brandon seem a little two-dimensional to me. Frank sounds like the generic 50’s parent who just does his job and lets his wife raise the kids. Brandon reminds me of Wally from Leave It To Beaver.
-Always interested in religious stories, so I look forward to reading more of this.
Hope this helps.
avedis reviewed Version 11 -
Read 100% of the Item
You suck us into your characters, making us want to know them, understand them. You tell something, and then put that information into practice with some documented behaviour. Some things you leave for us to work out for ourselves.
You love these people, even Brandon, and it shows. It makes us love them, or love to hate with Brandon.
You also introduce the challenge, so lauded by so many, that Rod has to over come.
So, this is one of those mainly positive reviews.
My one gripe. Given the nature of the subsequent writing, I think the prologue is misplaced and mishandled. Not some of the sentiments, they are the Rod we grow to know. The list format, the Vodka, these I just do not like. It does not set the tone for what follows.
Some minor things:
How old is Dianne? We know Rod is 14, it is important to know where her age comes into this. Older, younger, same age? The boyfirend concept could be precocious or could match her age. That will be important.
Both Rod and Dianne are prematurely mature in some of their thoughts/actions. That is fine, the reasons do come out later – for Rod at least.
The Bell Witch, I have no idea what/who this is. Maybe an US cultural knowledge, or lack off, or could be something unique to be revealed later.
Just make sure the fleeting reference is deliberate.
I didn’t use my magifying glass, so no spelling etc glared, and I don’t think such things important at this stage – you will catch them knowing you.
This lives fully up to the outline, so you are well on track.
derekosborne reviewed Version 11 -
Read 100% of the Item
What’s fun with your stuff is I get to fine tune.
“Here, just … Rod’s [math] homework …. You just said “math”. It’s assumed.
“waiting for a cheeseburger, [no onions, extra pickles.] Referring to fries steps on the simile
“Diane had got …. father’s bookshelf.” I know the second “had is grammatically correct but the sentence would read better without it. Personal choice.
“She wanted to, much more than…” This comma slows things down
“You count,” said Rod. ……….? Without believing in a world just as evil? This whole paragraph is awkward in several places. Rework for clarity.
I personally believe that Richard Simmons is evil.
“If you have a thousand of them,” Brandon said under his breath. [line break] “Well, I guess,” Cheryl sighed.
This is a good setup. It might be better as two chapters. Current fashion and all that. Spoon feed the little buggers, but the more I think about it I want to suggest your try it. Stepping back and revisiting the work from memory, I am getting two, separate chunks of exposition.
1- Rod is a gay loner whose only friend is the smart, fat girl in the neighborhood. They hang out together every afternoon at her house. They are both sexually aware of the chasm between them. He compensates for his insecurities by imagining hidden divinity. They live in a small, ignorant Southern town and suffer all of the inherent, crushing fears and prejudice.
2- Then we go to Rod’s house. Rod is deeply attached to his mother (another fat girl grown up), estranged from his father (a failure in his own eyes and afraid of his gay son) and loves but cannot befriend his older brother (probably on his own path toward failure). They live in a poor, stagnant household that Rod is desperate to escape. He forms a plan.
Seems like two separate chapters. The story is developing nicely. The only thing I am worried about is that it all seems too familiar. The sophisticated reader will sense that they’ve already seen the movie. From a marketing standpoint, you may want to consider inserting a stronger hint of things to come. Create a more compelling expectation. I don’t mean you should compromise the integrity of the story, just insert the hook a bit sooner. My guess is that it is coming in the next chapter, which may be soon enough, but at this point in the story I am missing and wanting to know what it is.