Tom this was a really enjoyable story. The flashback to the polio ward was well executed. And the ending was unexpected which tied the polio flashback in and also magnified a certain level of despair that the main character was feeling to the forefront about the loss of one of his soldiers. It was a complex story with carefully crafted trajectory. Nice work.
Thanks for reading, Amy. I'm pleased that you liked it. It might interest you to know that the polio flashback is the elaboration of an authentic memory. I was only six years old at the time, but what I put in the story is pretty much what I remember now.
Ya I wondered about that. As a memoirist myself, I feel like even in fiction I can often pick out which pieces came from the author’s actual experience because they are often the most authentic deep sections. Really wonderful.
We plunder the past. George Orwell based the dystopian urban landscape of "Nineteen-Eighty-four" on dingy, bomb-scarred wartime London—very familiar to him from his time working for the BBC. The fictional warship of "The Caine Mutiny" is based on the actual USS Zane, on which the author, Herman Wouk, served as a communications officer during WW II. Some of my stories are set in Union, Massachusetts—a smudgy copy of my actual home town, Taunton, Massachusetts.
Indeed, there's something to the notion that fiction is autobiography by indirect means.
Thanks, Claire. Coming from you, that’s quite an accolade.
Curiously enough, “Survivor” isn’t my personal favorite among the stories I’ve written—I mean as a finished product. Perhaps, as I mentioned in my author’s note, it strikes too close to home. Writing it, however, was a memorable experience. Everything just seemed to flow together…
My personal favorite is "The Painted Queen," which was supposed to be a haunted house story but evolved into something quite different. A close second is "Mothers and Daughters," which I published here in June of last year. But if you want a story for CG, a good choice might be "If Two Be Away"—which touches on politics among other things. I published it here in February of this year.
Tom this was a really enjoyable story. The flashback to the polio ward was well executed. And the ending was unexpected which tied the polio flashback in and also magnified a certain level of despair that the main character was feeling to the forefront about the loss of one of his soldiers. It was a complex story with carefully crafted trajectory. Nice work.
Thanks for reading, Amy. I'm pleased that you liked it. It might interest you to know that the polio flashback is the elaboration of an authentic memory. I was only six years old at the time, but what I put in the story is pretty much what I remember now.
Ya I wondered about that. As a memoirist myself, I feel like even in fiction I can often pick out which pieces came from the author’s actual experience because they are often the most authentic deep sections. Really wonderful.
We plunder the past. George Orwell based the dystopian urban landscape of "Nineteen-Eighty-four" on dingy, bomb-scarred wartime London—very familiar to him from his time working for the BBC. The fictional warship of "The Caine Mutiny" is based on the actual USS Zane, on which the author, Herman Wouk, served as a communications officer during WW II. Some of my stories are set in Union, Massachusetts—a smudgy copy of my actual home town, Taunton, Massachusetts.
Indeed, there's something to the notion that fiction is autobiography by indirect means.
Good story.
This is an extremely accomplished story. It will stick with me. Well done.
Thanks, Claire. Coming from you, that’s quite an accolade.
Curiously enough, “Survivor” isn’t my personal favorite among the stories I’ve written—I mean as a finished product. Perhaps, as I mentioned in my author’s note, it strikes too close to home. Writing it, however, was a memorable experience. Everything just seemed to flow together…
Which is your personal favorite? Perhaps one weekend we should publish one at CG, just for a change of pace.
My personal favorite is "The Painted Queen," which was supposed to be a haunted house story but evolved into something quite different. A close second is "Mothers and Daughters," which I published here in June of last year. But if you want a story for CG, a good choice might be "If Two Be Away"—which touches on politics among other things. I published it here in February of this year.
I'll have a look on Sunday. That might be a nice change of pace for our readers.
I liked it very much, but it didn't have quite the haunting quality this one does. Are any others online?
Well, there's "Virus" (April 2023), "Subtraction" (October 2022), "Gangs of Suburbia" (July 2022), and "Mothers and Daughters" (June 2022).