Friday, January 18, 2013

On "Hostages" by Shannon Heffernan (3143 words) ***

Anything can happen in a story. That's part of what makes them so fun to read. In some of the best stories, everything happens and nothing--that is, they wander around, letting life get messy, but they don't have a heavy story arc--they're just there. I found "Hostages" to be like that. Certainly, the piece is centered around a neighbor who has taken someone hostage, a situation that has more or less trapped a couple of twins in their apartment (and a few others outside their apartments). But life, mostly, goes on--the twins pack for moving, anguish over love, sickness, and what it means to truthful. There's not a lot of hysteria here. Like many such a situation, it is, as one of the officer's notes, mostly a waiting game. Read the story here at Annalemma.

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