December 23rd, 2019 - Only Orange

Dear TNY,

“Only Orange” is an absolutely perfect example of a modern short story.  It’s lifeless, meandering, insists on squandering every opportunity to become interesting, and fails to illicit transcendence to the collective unconscious.

But I did read the whole thing.  A little truth here:  I only read the whole thing because I was putting together the metrics for FTNY’s second year in review (Hey-O!) and I noticed that I didn’t finish as many stories this year.  But we’ll get to that in another letter soon enough.

I guess, I’d like to see this story as edited by Gordon Lish.  Because it does have interesting features.  Marion.  The color-blindness.  The reality show dad.  This story clocked in at +6700 words and I would say that 3000 of those were wasted and got in the way of the things that were interesting.  It reminded me of “Cathedral” or that one Carver story with the ugly baby and the peacock (“Feathers”?).  Or the guy with hooks for arms who takes Polaroids of your house.  Carver was a master at including weird little things and then using the starkness of his writing and those weird things to bring us all to the door to collective unconscious and then open it for us.  Those things are in this story, but the author is off to God-knows-where, orphaning (puns!) these unique story qualities which then flounder and die.

Ugh.

Stories should be life altering.  The only reason I will remember this story is because it could have been so much better.  I cannot recall looking upon the Winged Victory of Samothrace and thinking, goddamn that could have been so much better.  Or reading Catcher in the Rye and thinking, it’s infuriating how much better that could have been. Or listening to “Clair De Lune” and saying to myself, goddamn if it was missing half the notes it would so much better.

But it’s your show, toots.  Fuck it up as you please.

Nick

Post Fucking Script, bro: So if this story’s sole intention was to be a commercial for EnChroma color blindness glasses, it did its job admirably. I just got lost in an hour of watching old men cry when they see color for the first time. And I loved it. In saying that, I did see the price of these things. You guys are trying to tell me that she bought some $300 glasses and then 2 day international shipped them sonsabitches to EU? For her brother’s girlfriend she’s just meeting? In this economy? Pssh. Also Dude, let's not forget, let's NOT forget that keeping wildlife, um... an amphibious rodent, for... um, you know domestic... within the city... that ain't legal either.