very nice Thomas. I like the fact I read to the end but then went back to the beginning and read with new eyes. like this sentence reads very differently the second time around: "If only he could smile and hide the torrent of pain and humiliation throbbing within his ruined face and betraying his indignation at the dignity he’d been denied, not once but always"
amazing work to sort of obfuscate the failure of his suicide like that.
I liked elizabeth's meekness turning to strength and Theodora being a foil to Theodore-- in the end, it was kind of like, who REALLY was wielding the gun? Emotion can be a powerful weapon indeed.
could maybe do with some tightening up in places just to make it shorter, probably with descriptions, just to make the major points move more quickly.
I actually think this is perfect to submit somewhere for just that reason--I felt like I was reading a lit mag more than a Substack post. In fact, I think it makes a far better submission than Substack post, if only for the length. I'd submit it many places, hang on to it for a year, and if no bites, post it. I certainly would have restacked this.
It's a lovely unravelling of the present to the past and how you kept the key moment until the end.
Two notes:
1) Great opening line. However, the two paragraphs that follow are rushed - I would use white space to allow the key moments to breathe, such as "smile motherfucker, smile" and trim back parts of the explanation to focus on the grievance and the action.
2) I understand who and what, but not where Theodore is in the first scene. I don't have a visual picture until he is pushed into the police car. Who are the damned? Is he outside, inside, somewhere official...? This tripped me up.
3) Love Theodora (nice mirror-imagery of her husband there, especially with the emotional insights) and using the trolley and department store to indicate the internal decay.
Good luck with your publication and submission. I am happy to promote it.
This is beautiful. Absolutely, deserves to be published. Substack counts as published, but it seems a shame to limit it to only Substack. It deserves to be out in the world as far as you can throw it.
As a nitpick, do you want to place a period in the first paragraph after the second em-dash? I had to reread the first part a few times to get it, but it could be just me. Another option would be to leave out the words between the em-dashes to help with that, but this is entirely subjective.
Beautifully told! I liked the drip-drip of details about the situation. The language is exquisite. Well done and I wish you success in finding another home for it.
Spectacular. Everything about this piece is phenomenal.
It's probably good that you published this straight to your Substack because it really shows you know what you're talking about in your prose style essays.
Well done, Thaddeus, you've really raised the bar with this one.
Wonderful in all of the right places. I've said it somewhere else: this is selfish of me because this should be sent to a lit mag but it being here meant that I got to read it again.
Also: I need you to clone yourself and do one of your articles breaking down this piece theme by theme with an analysis on the prose-- it deserves that attention
You've got many great lines in this piece, and give us facts in a subtle way, for example.
She wondered if he’d snored in that woman’s bed. (Yep, he was unfaithful AND mean to her.)
Her cake tasted lonely. (Cake is a treat, but it might as well taste like onions. Poisons have beautiful names: Belladonna, Nightshade, Marriage.)
Green-and-jolly trolleyed down the track. (Love the injection of jolly-trolley, which reminds me of the Christmas lyric: Hand a holly-jolly Christmas, say hello to folks you know….)
The bus hissed like a cat and sighed like an old man. (So many older people have pets, so it’s perfect.)
and joined the little green line as the jolly trolleyed to a stop. (Changing noun to a verb … you wrote about that. Use this as a perfect example.)
“Transplanted from Virginia.” Elizabeth’s voice caught in her throat, choked by all she’d left behind. (Perhaps people from the South will understand this in a way others won’t. It’s the melancholy that pervades the defeated even though, in the present, the South has risen again, and the graceful manners, gentility, and longing for an elegant past.
The holy man feels nothing, and nothing touches him. It was by emotion that I fell into this pit and by emotions all men are made undone. Cauterize the heart and steel the mind. Set ice upon thy veins, for the casting off of all emotion is the key to acceptance before God, His angels, and the parole board. (Spectacular! The holy man separates himself from the profanity and banality of life; transcends and then becomes, haughty which gives a foundation for the bitterness to come. Cauterize --- great word choice. And then the great Biblical cadence until the list ends with ..the parole board. The hard reality that indicates the truth that Theordore may be a cynic, thus caustic towards his wife.)
Theodora drove an electric hearse
that sang an aria in reverse.
(The rhyme breaks up the narrative, and interjecting a dark levity makes the story more interesting. Because the plot is dark, and telling of it sad, this twist adds a wryness I love.)
“You’re carrying it for me, darling. You’re carrying a weight once carried by others before you, generations of women gone and buried, and it’s far too much for your tiny shoulders.” ( Good example of a typical narcissistic compliment and pretense of caring.)
“I’d say I feel empty, but there isn’t even a form to be empty or full. There’s just nothing.” (If ever there was a statement of nihilism, this is it.)
Scared him, I guess. (Ya think? Serves him right, too! And this is the first time Lizzie reacts as though she’s seen the light and is enjoying it. We know, she’s going to be okay.)
The spare bedroom door swung open on silent hinges. Theodore sat on the end of the bed,…. (So, they no longer sleep together by this time.)
unzipping his face like God undoing his creation. (Great line.)
Could the piece be shortened? Sure, but whether it is or not depends on where you submit it to, and guidelines regarding length. It was tough reading for me in places, speaking as a widow because of suicide -- but it certainly reflects the deep despair, wrought of selfishness of the suicide-inclined person. He think she should want death as much as he does, but it's not the case: he wants to manipulate her into death. Supreme power. Nice literary handling of a (seemingly) delicate subject. As a noir gal myself, I like clobbering with a feather's touch.
This story, though one of tragedy, is beautifully written, and though it provides a glimpse of the lives told within, the story itself feels complete. I have little feedback except, perhaps, to consider flipping the order of these two paragraphs to close the scene (because the visual you created matches better with the gun, I think, than the notion that Elizabeth has never been loved):
No one could be trusted, and she found herself alone, awake but dreaming of Theodore dead, air sucking through a mask splattered and intermingled with bone and meat, a few teeth dangling at the edges of his jaw.
No one had ever loved her, and every moment was like the last, guards on parade.
For submission opps, if you haven't done so already, ChillSubs allows you to browse thousands of submission spots, filtering by open calls, payment terms, genre, length, and more and cuts down on otherwise heavy publisher research time.
If you choose to submit and this piece gets published, I will happily read it again and help you spread the word. <3
Thank you for inviting me to read this. Such a great read and piece of writing. As a reader, I appreciated the structure of this piece and also the world building element in it—with very little exposition your mind is able to imagine the situation. I really really really enjoy the structure of this piece and the way you move between the characters, and the ending just being “end”!
very nice Thomas. I like the fact I read to the end but then went back to the beginning and read with new eyes. like this sentence reads very differently the second time around: "If only he could smile and hide the torrent of pain and humiliation throbbing within his ruined face and betraying his indignation at the dignity he’d been denied, not once but always"
amazing work to sort of obfuscate the failure of his suicide like that.
I liked elizabeth's meekness turning to strength and Theodora being a foil to Theodore-- in the end, it was kind of like, who REALLY was wielding the gun? Emotion can be a powerful weapon indeed.
could maybe do with some tightening up in places just to make it shorter, probably with descriptions, just to make the major points move more quickly.
I actually think this is perfect to submit somewhere for just that reason--I felt like I was reading a lit mag more than a Substack post. In fact, I think it makes a far better submission than Substack post, if only for the length. I'd submit it many places, hang on to it for a year, and if no bites, post it. I certainly would have restacked this.
Thank you so much for this!
It's a lovely unravelling of the present to the past and how you kept the key moment until the end.
Two notes:
1) Great opening line. However, the two paragraphs that follow are rushed - I would use white space to allow the key moments to breathe, such as "smile motherfucker, smile" and trim back parts of the explanation to focus on the grievance and the action.
2) I understand who and what, but not where Theodore is in the first scene. I don't have a visual picture until he is pushed into the police car. Who are the damned? Is he outside, inside, somewhere official...? This tripped me up.
3) Love Theodora (nice mirror-imagery of her husband there, especially with the emotional insights) and using the trolley and department store to indicate the internal decay.
Good luck with your publication and submission. I am happy to promote it.
Thank you!
Profoundly well written. A joy to read Thaddeus. It brims with passion and skill.
Thank you Steve!
This is beautiful. Absolutely, deserves to be published. Substack counts as published, but it seems a shame to limit it to only Substack. It deserves to be out in the world as far as you can throw it.
As a nitpick, do you want to place a period in the first paragraph after the second em-dash? I had to reread the first part a few times to get it, but it could be just me. Another option would be to leave out the words between the em-dashes to help with that, but this is entirely subjective.
Amazing stuff.
I appreciate that so much!
Beautifully told! I liked the drip-drip of details about the situation. The language is exquisite. Well done and I wish you success in finding another home for it.
Thank you Larry!
Spectacular. Everything about this piece is phenomenal.
It's probably good that you published this straight to your Substack because it really shows you know what you're talking about in your prose style essays.
Well done, Thaddeus, you've really raised the bar with this one.
I'm floored and honored
Very nicely written thing for posting this and happy Friday
Happy Friday
Wonderful in all of the right places. I've said it somewhere else: this is selfish of me because this should be sent to a lit mag but it being here meant that I got to read it again.
Being read is the ultimate point, isn't it?
Yes indeed
Also: I need you to clone yourself and do one of your articles breaking down this piece theme by theme with an analysis on the prose-- it deserves that attention
That works seriously require a clone 😁😁
You've got many great lines in this piece, and give us facts in a subtle way, for example.
She wondered if he’d snored in that woman’s bed. (Yep, he was unfaithful AND mean to her.)
Her cake tasted lonely. (Cake is a treat, but it might as well taste like onions. Poisons have beautiful names: Belladonna, Nightshade, Marriage.)
Green-and-jolly trolleyed down the track. (Love the injection of jolly-trolley, which reminds me of the Christmas lyric: Hand a holly-jolly Christmas, say hello to folks you know….)
The bus hissed like a cat and sighed like an old man. (So many older people have pets, so it’s perfect.)
and joined the little green line as the jolly trolleyed to a stop. (Changing noun to a verb … you wrote about that. Use this as a perfect example.)
“Transplanted from Virginia.” Elizabeth’s voice caught in her throat, choked by all she’d left behind. (Perhaps people from the South will understand this in a way others won’t. It’s the melancholy that pervades the defeated even though, in the present, the South has risen again, and the graceful manners, gentility, and longing for an elegant past.
The holy man feels nothing, and nothing touches him. It was by emotion that I fell into this pit and by emotions all men are made undone. Cauterize the heart and steel the mind. Set ice upon thy veins, for the casting off of all emotion is the key to acceptance before God, His angels, and the parole board. (Spectacular! The holy man separates himself from the profanity and banality of life; transcends and then becomes, haughty which gives a foundation for the bitterness to come. Cauterize --- great word choice. And then the great Biblical cadence until the list ends with ..the parole board. The hard reality that indicates the truth that Theordore may be a cynic, thus caustic towards his wife.)
Theodora drove an electric hearse
that sang an aria in reverse.
(The rhyme breaks up the narrative, and interjecting a dark levity makes the story more interesting. Because the plot is dark, and telling of it sad, this twist adds a wryness I love.)
“You’re carrying it for me, darling. You’re carrying a weight once carried by others before you, generations of women gone and buried, and it’s far too much for your tiny shoulders.” ( Good example of a typical narcissistic compliment and pretense of caring.)
“I’d say I feel empty, but there isn’t even a form to be empty or full. There’s just nothing.” (If ever there was a statement of nihilism, this is it.)
Scared him, I guess. (Ya think? Serves him right, too! And this is the first time Lizzie reacts as though she’s seen the light and is enjoying it. We know, she’s going to be okay.)
The spare bedroom door swung open on silent hinges. Theodore sat on the end of the bed,…. (So, they no longer sleep together by this time.)
unzipping his face like God undoing his creation. (Great line.)
Could the piece be shortened? Sure, but whether it is or not depends on where you submit it to, and guidelines regarding length. It was tough reading for me in places, speaking as a widow because of suicide -- but it certainly reflects the deep despair, wrought of selfishness of the suicide-inclined person. He think she should want death as much as he does, but it's not the case: he wants to manipulate her into death. Supreme power. Nice literary handling of a (seemingly) delicate subject. As a noir gal myself, I like clobbering with a feather's touch.
Thank you. And you've read both this and the first draft so thank you twice.
This story, though one of tragedy, is beautifully written, and though it provides a glimpse of the lives told within, the story itself feels complete. I have little feedback except, perhaps, to consider flipping the order of these two paragraphs to close the scene (because the visual you created matches better with the gun, I think, than the notion that Elizabeth has never been loved):
No one could be trusted, and she found herself alone, awake but dreaming of Theodore dead, air sucking through a mask splattered and intermingled with bone and meat, a few teeth dangling at the edges of his jaw.
No one had ever loved her, and every moment was like the last, guards on parade.
For submission opps, if you haven't done so already, ChillSubs allows you to browse thousands of submission spots, filtering by open calls, payment terms, genre, length, and more and cuts down on otherwise heavy publisher research time.
If you choose to submit and this piece gets published, I will happily read it again and help you spread the word. <3
Thank you
Beautifully written. Wondrous to read. Let me imagine how different my life may be had I allowed him to buy the gun....
Thank you for inviting me to read this. Such a great read and piece of writing. As a reader, I appreciated the structure of this piece and also the world building element in it—with very little exposition your mind is able to imagine the situation. I really really really enjoy the structure of this piece and the way you move between the characters, and the ending just being “end”!