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A daily record of what I'm thinking about what I'm reading

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Sunday, June 20, 2010

Who's this writer with the unrevealing name - C.E. Morgan?

Like most of the other pieces in The New Yorker 20 under 40 fiction issue, the selections from S. Scibona (sp?) and C.E. Morgan appear to be excerpts from longer works, either novels-in-progress or novels forthcoming. Niether has the true arc of a story; both introduce characters and situation without bring the story to a resolution - by which I don't mean complete closure as in the most traditional stories, in mean not even the moment of final insight that New Yorker stories have been known for since the 50s and that have become the trademark or bane of writing programs, the tic that launched a thousand careers. Scibona's story, The Kid, about a Latvian boy abandoned in an airport, is well-written but wildly improbable, and it takes quite a while for the story to come into focus. Assuming there's more to the story, perhaps the novel-in-waiting will go on to explore what happened to the boy? Hard to know. The novel could be good, but this piece was not really satisfying on its own. C.E. Morgan, Twins, is another story, so to speak. Who is this writer with the generic, unrevealing name? She's one who's slipped beneath my radar, one of those names you see around but whom most of us know nothing about - compared especially with the some the media-savvy members of her under-40 cohort. I'll pay attention to her - this story beautifully evokes its setting, working-class mixed neighborhood in Cincinnati, ca 1980, and she does a good job establishing the characters - twins, one black one white - with the world seen from their limited, frightened POV. Interesting that at least 3, probably more, of the 8 stories in this issue are from the POV of very young children. Writing from the POV of a young child is in some ways a restriction but also frees writers from certain binding conventions (adult perceptions and base of knowledge). Need to think further about this theme.

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