One Story “In the Neighborhood”

Recently, it was advertised that Roxane Gay would be judging a fiction contest for the Masters Review.  There was an informative few sentences as to what kind of stories Ms. Gay likes and didn’t like.  Among the things she didn’t like: stories about writers, and stories about white couples in sad relationships.  I chortled, and decided not to enter that contest because the piece I had ready would have trended too closely to the sad relationship trope.  Then, this arrived in the mail.  I’m sorry to say that Roxane Gay’s comments were still too fresh in my mind.  It’s a story of a white couple in a sad relationship.  Even without Gay’s comments, I think I might have still compared it unfavorably to an earlier One Story about a white couple in a sad relationship.  That one–“Queen Elizabeth”–I really enjoyed.   This one, not so much.

3 thoughts on “One Story “In the Neighborhood””

  1. This post made me realize that I don’t like reading about sad relationships either. And I really don’t like reading about writers, mostly because I feel like most of those stories are authors writing themselves into their own stories, one of my biggest writing pet peeves.

    1. I don’t mind reading about sad relationships, but I think I like to start before the relationship turns sad. This story dropped me into already-in-progress sad. In that form, I don’t have any attachment to the relationship and am more likely to lean toward, “not working/get divorced.”

  2. Boo to sad relationships! I want Darcy and Elizabeth every time. That’s why I read YA romance. Or at least a certain kind of YA romance. #NOSHAME

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