March 25th 2017: "The Whole Truth" by Colin Farstad

[Smiley]

Please join us for our next chat in #readers_corner at 8:30 P.M. (EST) on March 25, 2017 [00:30 A.M. (GMT), March 26th, one hour earlier than normal for those not yet on daylight savings time] 

for a discussion of The Whole Truth by Colin Farstad.  This story was originally published by the now inactive on-line literary magazine "Split Infinitive" but is still available on the remnants of that magazines web site.

 

This story is quite different than our last discussion.  As opposed to a somewhat disjointed tale of miscreant young men whose sole desire is to grow up and become real gangsters, it tells the poignant story of a young man still deeply in love with his estranged wife.  I am sure you will find the story interesting, and I am certain we will have fun discussing it.  

 

The story is available at:  http://www.spiltinfinitive.com/the-whole-truth/#.WM75hzsrImK (please note:  the story is apparently stored on a Google historical web page.  Another sysop and I have tested the website with chrome and firefox and it works...but we can't comment on whether Edge or an older computer using IE can locate it.)

 

The author has lived in both Portland, Oregon and Brooklyn, New York, suggesting that this story might be (at least in part) autobiographical.  On his website¹ he posted the following comment: "I made an editor cry. I didn't mean to make her cry, but it wasn't the first time my essay The Whole Truth has done that. I cried myself while I was writing it, after I finished writing it and again when I laid on a motel bed in a campsite near Crater Lake, curled up in a ball, my body shaking with the kind of crying you see happen to seven year olds. I had spent the day sitting by the lake, the pages printed out, pen in hand, reading and editing the darkness on the page while happy families swam in the lake and the misquotes buzzed my ears. It wasn't until I thought it was finished, after I made the edits in my computer and read it out loud, my voice filling the empty room late in the night, long after all the families and tourists had gone to bed, that I cried like a seven year old." 

 

Our meeting place remains:

 

Webchat:  http://koach.com/cha...=readers_corner  

 

mIRC Users:  /server -m chat3.koach.com:6667 -j #readers_corner

 

I hope to see you all for the chat.  Don't forget to bring a friend.

 

^1:  http://colinfarstad.com/