Review for: Dark Places
reviewed by Spider Griffin


Other Reviews

By: no2words Daniel Griffin's review was fair, well written and in general I can agree. The story left me with the feeling that it had been written by a journalist and it was the event and not the person that was the focus of the story. I would like to see more dimension to the character and sense of place. Maybe on a second reading I will get the feel for the person. ...
By: mujo You clearly have a good control over language, so I’m wondering why you didn’t make this story work. You gave it all a very dreamy, creepy feeling – parallel universe time – and this was really quite enjoyable. But in maintaining this airy and elusive train of narration the punch you wanted to get across in the end, that that was her in the body bag, is lost in an intellectual haze. I had to go back for a second reading to cherry pick those phrases that told me this was actually what you intended. If you want to kill off your main character at the end of any story it’s well worth your effort making me feel something about it : shock, sadness, outrage, redemption … that’s up to you. What you’ve done here instead is create a world in a bubble – which you did very eloquently – but in doing so you have to pay the price for isolating me from her emotionally. I simply don’t care what happens to her. Last smallish thing. There are a couple of instances where the husband speaking just clangs so much that it drew me away from the story, making me wonder what the hell you were thinking letting something so weak slip in : “I have made something to eat.� “I don’t think I will believe it unless I do.� He sounds like a robot. All in all – not bad. But it could have been a lot better. ...

Date: 06-20-2009 05:32 pm
Score:

This story is so very well written; I love the "unrealness" of it; the mysterious delivery at the begining and the crate (what could be in there?) and of course, the surprising ending. Its flavour reminded me of aspects of The Moustache by Emmanuel Carrère. It kept my interest throughout; I thought that the ongoing portrayal of Ella's state of mind was superb. The only thing against it I would mention is that, being a short story, I thought the Chapter division unnecessary; I personally would have preferred a double line space between the sections. All in all, excellent; I admire the style of writing. I intend to read "Dark Places" a few more times.