February 1st, 2021 - The Wind

Dear TNY,

It’s a new Monday and I’m in a new place doing new work and reading “The Wind”.

And, I don’t know if why I’m crying is so much about the story or about reality.  Because whether or not this is fiction, it’s fucking horrific the things men do and are able to get away with.  Especially in that timeframe, but that doesn’t absolve any actions in this one.

What I’m saying is it makes me feel ashamed to be this half (more or less) of the species.  And how could it not?  How could you not feel like we fucking let everyone down?  Fucked it all up.  Took something beautiful and destroyed it.  I know that the vast majority of men don’t act like this (myself included).  I know that progress has been made.  It’s just, fuck man, they deserve better than us.  So much better.

Anyway, crying.

I would say that this is a good story.  It certainly has its issues.  The most overwhelming issue, by far, is that it’s told from a girl’s perspective of listening to her mom tell it, but it’s shifting in and out of the grandmother’s past into the mother’s past into the girl’s present, and same goes for the girl’s POV, shifting from being a girl as the grandmother, the mother, and the girl.  Yes, we get to see these children go through this event (and really, we don’t because the event is the fucking monster in the closet; as in it is known, but not seen (well played on the author’s part; also, can you imagine writing that scene?  Fuck my face, guys; horrorshow)) as well as seeing what eventually happens to the children as grown-ups.  Yes we see what happens to the mother and how that affects her daughter.  We see the whole timeline as well as the echoes of the trauma.  But, my question to you, TNY, is…is that timeline worth the confusing transitions, considering how fucking confusing they are?  Could this story have just picked something and ran with it?  Picked an order instead of clumsily moving between timeframes?  And if it could not have possibly been told better, couldn’t the timeframes have been cleaned a little more such that it wasn’t so clunky?

That’s it.  That’s my one beef.

Now I have to go imagine this woman begging for her fucking life, teeth all busted out, while her children standby and it breaks my fucking heart.  I, like the restaurant man, would murder that fucking guy every day for the rest of my life.  At least I’d like to think I would.  But, this story has got me feeling like a useless piece of shit.

Thanks.

Nick