Reading Response: The Story

Amy Bloom’s story, The Story, really confused me. I think it might be an example of an unsuccessful story. Pages 275-278 were alright, but after that the story spiraled out of control. While reading the first few pages I thought the narrator’s life was quite sad. She described her husband as being cold and indifferent, though she praised him for sticking with her until he died. She also mentioned that their baby died. Then she went on to describe a rich family she helped with finances and babysitting. About mid way down page 278, she suddenly she started changing everyone's names and their stories. Sandra went from being a friendly, well-meaning mother to an irresponsible, abusive mother who was cheating on her husband. It was basically a series of lies. Once one lie finished the narrator would admit to lying and then replace the lie with another lie. I’m confused just writing about it. Bloom also had the narrator go on a tangent about Sandra’s boyfriend, Joe, who was just plopped in the story and had nothing to do with her life. I couldn't figure out the main character’s desire or the point of the story. She was completely unreliable. The Story I kept my attention only because I wanted to see if the ending would make sense of everything, but it didn’t. It was just rambling that became more tangled and misguided with every paragraph. The only part I liked about The Story was the narrator’s description of the stained glass windows her husband made and how they lit the house up in different colors. I thought the imagery was nice, and the idea of people flocking to their house to view the windows was interesting. Other then that I missed the value of the story, if there is any.