Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Response to "Deception" by Laurel Kostakis


            Laurel’s short story conveys a rather bloody drama between husband and wife.  Ultimately the story is about the protagonist, Marcy, and her lying, cheating husband, Kevin.  Slowly Marcy begins to figure out Kevin’s rather elusive behavior, and presumes him cheating on her with another woman.  As Kevin announces that he has a shady business meeting out of town, he leaves the house to Marcy to spend the night in by herself.  On this night, Marcy encounters her husband and another unnamed man in her house.  Both characters kill each other, and Marcy moves on like nothing happened.  Oh, and she gained some dogs.
            The story did a lot of things right at the beginning.  The most impressive of which was the dialogue.  I really enjoyed the conversations between Marcy and Kevin.  Just by this scene, the reader can really gauge the relationship and understand the character’s places in the story.  However, towards the end it began to feel more rushed.
            Firstly, the story seems to raise more questions than it answers.  I’m a big fan of open-ended story endings, but this one seemed to make no sense at times.  I’m almost reluctant to call Marcy the protagonist, because I feel that in no way she drove the story.  Everything that she went through she had no part in.  All events seemed to escape Marcy’s comprehension or involvement.  The beginning of the story, I initially found interesting, but when the story reaches a conclusion, I feel as if the opening sequence is irrelevant.  In all, I just felt confused.  I enjoyed reading the story, but I just couldn’t grasp what was making the characters do these things.  Why was this husband a killer?  Who was this other burglar/murderer who enters the house?  Why does Marcy seem so detached?  The story feels incomplete, and in the middle of all of this juicy action and story, there appears to be pieces missing.

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