February 18th & 25th, 2019 - The Confession

Dear TNY,

I did not read most of “The Confession” if I’m honest.  I started skimming pretty early on.  It was fucking short by your standards.  And I still couldn’t commit.  I knew I was going to be out in the first paragraph.  Here’s why:

Firstly, a disclaimer:  I cannot speak about rape from (this kind of) experience.  I cannot speak to this culture.  I cannot speak to how accurate this translation was.  I am not an authority of the real life of these situations and my heart goes out to anyone who has been abused in a scenario like this.

What I can speak to is literature.  This story isn’t it.  The voice is weak and ignorant (not in the characterizing ignorant, but the laborious to read standpoint; i.e. it reads like a fucking sixth grader wrote it which is an insult to literature).  The story, although something happens, reads like nothing happens.  The whole thing is summary.  And, most importantly, it isn’t moving literature forward.  It’s just you, TNY, playing the “underrepresented voice” card.  I’ve said this a million times (hyperbole, I know):  Just because someone can write a story doesn’t mean it should be published.

Do your fucking job.

Nick

P.S. The drawing for this post is an accurate representation of the thing I found most interesting about this story. The thing that is interesting is that outside the window of this bar I’m writing this post from it’s snowing like a motherfucker. It’s snowing more than it has in the last 70 years.