December 7th, 2012 at 02:30am
I read this with Marina and the Diamonds playing in the background and I still got this peculiar shiver down my back. It's so ironic how I discovered this story THE DAY after my English class finished analyzing and reading A Rose for Emily.
Fucking Christ this was PERFECT. To be honest I've never read your works before, but this was the best first story I've seen by you and it set me up for immediate high expectations for you. You wrote everything so perfectly, your vocabulary was descriptive and added on to the eerie feel of him telling the story. I LOVED how I read it as if I was there with him; it added on to the creepiness.
And the ended. Oh yes: the ending. It was a peculiar twist, much the same as the actual story A Rose for Emily. I love how you go more into Toby's (sp?) character and play out the story in his point of view. For some reason I shivered with excitement when you explained how Miss Emily looked naked when she went to his room when he was 13 years old. That was an amazing description, albeit very curt and to the point.
As I've said before, this is amazing and you're amazing. I wish I could write as well as you do.
I surely will be looking at your other works!
This was a beautiful story. The strangeness of it made me fall in love, and the accent in the narration is wonderful. Well, the narration itself is genius. I love that you managed to capture the southern speech perfectly. The simplicity of the layout really helps, too, to focus on the writing itself. With most stories in this kind of genre, the layouts are always so black and red, and it's harder to focus. I like how you went about this.
I haven't read A Rose for Emily, but now I wish I had. This was wonderful.