October 8th, 2018 - The Rise and Rise of Annie Clark

Dear TNY,

“The Rise and Rise of Annie Clark” is a brilliant fucking title.  The rest of the story, on the other hand, is whelming.  I don’t know, I guess. I stuck with the story through reams of summary.  The main character was a narcissistic shitheel so it was nice to watch as her children, husband, priest, and sister crapped on her.  She was consistent, so I can say that her characterization was probably good but she was definitely unlikable.  Everyone else seemed rather cardboard.

I like two things about this story.  There was that paragraph about Annie telling Willy that the sex part of their relationship was over.  That felt so matter-of-fact, the way she just dispatched him.  Not even my favorite part of that paragraph, though.  I love that she thought drinking was good because she wasn’t looking forward to another woman in their lives.  That kind of cold, human processing is…it’s just brutality.  That was the best paragraph in my opinion.

The other thing I liked was how she slept through her own miracle.  As if God was proving that yes, he was still as badass as she believed him to be, but no, she didn’t deserve to see it.

Really, though, not much I can say about this story.  Besides the two examples above, I won’t remember this story a week from now.  I wasn’t moved.  This story does the work to ensure the sentences are easy to read and there is little tripping for the reader.  But it’s not a classic.  It shouldn’t win any awards.  This reminds me of a story that gets cleaned by workshop and loses all of it character as part of that cleaning.  But some say that MFA voice is everywhere now.  It does make sense that a cut-rate rag like yourself, TNY, would feature stories with that voice.

Later,

Nick