May 25th, 2020 - Demolition

Dear TNY,

It’s 91 fucking degrees in my van right now and I wrapped up “Demolition”. 

I almost didn’t finish.  The first third is a waste of time.  This is because the entire narrative is bad storytelling.  Let me push that forward so you know what I mean.  There’s a ton of built in conflict here.  A house is being torn down.  There’s some fucking murderer dude.  There’s lost love.  A childless marriage. An interview with a journalist.  It goes on.  But the story leads with the house being torn down as the initial conflict.  Boring.  Because it’s the least effective conflict.  I can see where the author tried to stuff in loud noises and the husband coming in and out of the house again, but that’s all horsecock.  It’s apparent to the reader that the author is intentionally building tension through the introduction of more interesting conflict.  Sure sure.  But, if you are going to do that, do it like it’s done in “The Other Place”.  That story is good.  This one is bad.

How about as the lead sentence:  The first letter was rolled tight enough to fit into the skeleton keyhole in the back entrance to the house, which is exactly where Eva found it.

The author could have leveraged the conflict with Paul, using it to carry us through the story with interest.  And if we were interested (which we were not), we could have been delivered to the real prime cut of this story in a way that could have been a mass detonation.  Because the real hammer here is the Josie relationship, which is buried by this fucking Paul, this fucking demo, this fucking Kate interview, this fucking 95% of this story that was too “precious” to let go of.

I’ll save you the time; this is what the story is about: 

Josie lying in the heat under the maple tree, balancing an apple on her forehead, saying, “Never getting married, never never.” Every freckle like a small, warm sun.

And you squandered it on some “existential” “heady” “think-piece” about “past lives” and “neighbors”.  I want to hear the other story.  The one that was trying to get told, but the author was like, “I’m special wordsmith awesome funtime professional, and stuff.”  And the editor then said, “Me make word phrases on them pages for cheddar, big boy.”  Alas, Josie is lost to us, but damn did they take that house down when they put their minds to it.

Waste.  Of a perfectly good premise.

Oh, the bit about misspelling “specific” was choice and was the only other good literary sentence.

Nick