Reading response 9: The Story

Amy Bloom's The Story is a disturbing insight into the mind of a vengeful writer. The way she details this supposedly fictional account is surprisingly realistic and engrossingly cerebral. The protagonists distaste for the over-privileged, disloyal, and irresponsible mother Sandy fuels her directive to to absolve Miranda's and Sam's unfortunate living circumstances. She tricks the mother into getting farther and farther away from the family by encouraging her into making the wrong decisions and framing it in Sandy's best interest. The greatest example of this is when the main character consistently called Sandy's boyfriend, Joe, and fed him false info about what Sandy's doing. This led him to abusing Sandy and crashing his car into the back of the Goldust's house. The protagonist is unusually manipulative, given her usually submissive and self-subordinating background. This contrasting character development arose from how she described her courtship with her first husband, which basically boiled down to "he liked me so I liked him", how she described that relationship as emotionally vapid, and how she went from that to self-righteously plotting against someone else who really has never done her, personally, any wrong. However, the ending confused me. She recalled her grad school days and the death of someone she knew. I'm not sure what it was supposed to represent, but it was a gentle way to end a quietly tumultuous tale. Overall, The Story was a captivating read and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to start reading short stories.