Response to Nate Lundberg's "The last bit of home-made sugar"

            Nathan’s story details the brief glimpses of an unnamed narrator and his life in the hills of Ohio.  The speaker’s family resides on a patch of land, presumably in the mountains, that they share with extended family as well.  The snowy mountains hold cabins for the narrator’s immediate family, uncles, grandfathers, and one older couple who are not related to the narrator.  After catching word of the older man’s heart attack, the narrator and his family make way to the cabin to save the man.  After rescuing him and placing him in the car, the family asks the narrator to push the car up an icy mountain for it’s wheels couldn’t quite turn.  His family leaves him in the snow, where we assume that they are taking the elderly man to the hospital.

            The author accomplishes a lot of things that I like in the story.  For one, the imagery is profound and draws the reader into the story.  Nathan really captures the sting of the cold mountain air, and the various scenes with nature extremely well.  There’s one instance where he describes his encounter with his grandfather at his cabin and recalls the taste of fruity gum and saw dust.  It’s unique visuals like this that give the story a strong sense of character.

            I feel that the narrative begins to fall apart when the news broke of the heart attack.  The story suddenly began to feel rushed and unfocused.  The author either needs to break down the rescue scene much more or extend the scene.  The overall reasoning and understanding behind the family leaving the boy outside the car on a freezing uncivilized mountain is beyond me.  Why couldn’t they just stop and pick him up?  I understand that they were in a rush, but it doesn’t seem that inconvenient.  Nate is a really talented writer.  I really enjoyed some of the feelings that this story brought about.