Response to Robert Elrod's "Pretend"

            “Pretend” is a story that follows an unnamed main character that we learn hasn’t robbed people in years.  But now he has mustered up the courage to attempt a robbery on the next car that pulls up to this dilapidated gas station.  Upon meeting the occupants of the car, a young woman and her son, the man proceeds to make idle conversation and is reluctant to go through with his plan.  The car drives off; it’s passengers unharmed.

            There were a lot of elements to the story that I felt really worked.  The shining moments in this story is the use of dialogue.  This is a good thing because the whole narrative is one conversation.  I thought that this was a creative use of storytelling.  Robert’s descriptions were beautiful and well received as well.

            The one thing that I would consider changing would be a reference to the main character’s financial troubles.  At the beginning, we are told that this man does what he can to scrape by, so why wouldn’t he accept money from the woman?  I understand that he sort of is infatuated with the pair, but it would just make more sense if he earned money at the end through honest labor.  This way, the main character can change in more ways than just one way.

            In all, I really enjoyed the story.  I thought that it was a creative and interesting way to tell a story.  I like that the majority of the information that we find out about the characters is through dialogue.  We learn some about the protagonist from the opening paragraph, but not too much.  I also really like the title.  Both characters seem to be doing some degree of pretending in their lives, be it the woman’s situations at weddings or the main character pretending to be a robber.  I had a lot of fun reading this story, and I felt as if a lot of things were working towards the story’s advantage.