Story (2121 words)
William Starr Moake
DECONSTRUCTING SAMANTHA
1
(Deconstructionism: A philosophical theory of interpretation that
seeks to expose deep-seated contradictions by delving below the
surface meaning.)
When I read the dictionary definition, I realized immediately it was
the ideal mindset to reach an understanding of Samantha Steinwald. She
was a walking contradiction: a Jewess who once told me she thought her
people got what they deserved in Nazi Germany; a self-proclaimed
lesbian who couldn't keep her hands off of men; a chameleon who could
make her face look Asian or Latin as if by magic; a female riddle and
pathological liar who hid behind different versions of herself; a
vegetarian who was kind to animals but wanted someone to murder her
father; an educated, intelligent woman fond of gutter humor. She was
the angel of death disguised in the body of a Playboy centerfold
model. I once told her I was in love with her body, which was true
because there was nothing else about her to love.
I met Samantha a long time ago in Honolulu. I hated her nickname, Sam,
but I was hypnotized by her physical beauty the first time I saw her.
She was young with hazel eyes, shoulder-length black hair and a
certain sadness in her expression even when she smiled. We lived
together for awhile and our relationship continued for two years after
I forced her to move out of my apartment. She wanted me to take her to
Tierra del Fuego, the wind-swept wasteland at the tip of South
America, explaining that she simply had to see the ends of the earth
before she died. I loved Hawaii and wanted to stay in the islands.
We fought like tigers over this and other issues such as money. I
recall the day she left her checkbook open on the kitchen table and
then went to buy a newspaper, knowing I would take a look at the
balance. At the time I was struggling to pay the rent and keep us from
starving with a low-paying job I despised. And there was her bank
balance of $10,000 staring me in the face. She denied that she had
left the checkbook open on purpose, but it was such an obvious lie I
wanted to smack her. I told her I wasn't impressed by the money she
had stashed away, but from then on she would damn well contribute
toward the rent and food or else move her sweet ass out of my
apartment. She reacted by calling ME a cheapskate!
It wasn't long afterward that she mentioned how much she hated her
father, whom she said owned an apricot farm in northern California.
She hinted that she would be willing to pay someone to kill him.
"Is that why you let me see your checkbook?" I asked.
"I told you it was an accident," she insisted.
"Where did you get all that money?"
Samantha went into a long explanation about being paid to smuggle
currency in suitcases between the U.S. and Canada. It sounded
plausible and I didn't question her story.
But I was shocked that she thought I was the kind of man who would
consider killing anyone for money. I warned her never to broach the
subject again.
Samantha enjoyed sex and she was very good at it, but displays of
ordinary affection seemed repulsive to her. Every time she recoiled
from a hug or a kiss on the cheek it made me feel like an ogre and
this eroded my passion for her. I recall telling a friend I didn't
trust Samantha when we were living together. He nodded sympathetically
and said: "If you can't trust your old lady, then who the hell can you
trust?" That was a good question which gnawed at me.
One afternoon, while Samantha and I were driving to the beach, she
suggested that we get married. In the same breath she said she felt
sorry for any man who married her. It was so comical I burst out
laughing.
"You don't even know how to be a girlfriend," I told her. "Why in the
world would you want to get married?"
"Forget it," she said, withdrawing into a mask of indifference.
"You wouldn't be happy as a wife," I remarked. "Take my word for it."
"Let's not talk about it."
"You brought it up, not me."
She folded her arms. "Will you please shut up and just drive? It's hot
as hell in this car."
I turned on the fan. "Don't sulk about it, for Chrissakes."
"You're still talking."
After she moved out of the apartment, Samantha returned often to stay
overnight. I knew she didn't love me, that the sex was merely a tool
to keep me dangling, but I went along because I was horny and lonely
living alone. I represented a challenge to her. She was accustomed to
getting her way and I think I was the first man ever to say no to her.
That was Samantha when she was 27 years old going on 12. She always
reminded me of a willful pre-teen in a woman's body, a case of
emotionally arrested development. She had a master's degree in
sociology and could discuss any intellectual subject with deftness,
but when it came to matters of the heart, she was pathetically lacking
in adult insight. She was also prone to clumsiness, another childish
trait that belied her gorgeous physical maturity.
After I moved to Kauai, I lost track of Samantha. The last time I saw
her she was working as a "mermaid" -- a SCUBA diving guide for
tourists. I thought the connection to a mythological creature of
beauty fit her in a strangely perfect way. I gave her an expensive
underwater camera that she could use in her job, hoping this would
serve as a final peace offering. She said she didn't want it, which
infuriated me.
"Then throw it in the ocean," I said. "I don't give a damn what you do
with it."
The day before I left for Kauai, I received a note from Samantha along
with two photographs. The note said: "As you can see, I didn't throw
the camera away as you suggested." One photograph showed a tourist
underwater. The other was Samantha posing nude on a boulder. On the
back of this photograph she had written: "See what you are missing?"
I laughed until tears formed in my eyes and my stomach ached. My buxom
Lolita wanted to torture her poor Humbert one last time.
2
It would be a lie to claim I forgot about Samantha over the years. She
was the sort of girl who lingered in the memory like a haunting
mirage. I thought about her from time to time, but I never tried to
contact her until recently. I was surprised to discover that she was
still working as a "mermaid" in Honolulu. I e-mailed a brief message
to the dive shop, hoping we could catch up on each other's lives. I
was curious about her, but contacting a former girlfriend is always a
dicey business, so I was careful to sound politely casual in the
message.
The reply I received was disappointing to say the least. It was from
the dive shop owner, who wrote: "Samantha says she doesn't remember
ever having a friend in Honolulu with your name." The wording
contained a subtle message. She remembered me, all right, but not as a
friend. I shook my head in disgust. This mermaid had never even
thanked me for the underwater camera I gave her.
Well, that was the end of it -- or so I thought. A few months later a
newspaper article I stumbled across almost by accident led me to a
series of stunning discoveries about my ex-lover. Deconstructing
Samatha was like waking up from a dream. As I pursued my
investigation, I became obsessed with the disturbing realization that
I had never actually known who Samantha was.
The article was about an artist named Rober Steinwald, who had died at
age 87 from pnuemonia. I am not knowledgeable about art and I had
never heard of him, but the article said he was considered one of the
great American artists of his time. Of course, the last name was the
same as Samantha's and I suppose that is why I continued to read his
obituary. I thought he might be a distant relative.
The last line said Robert Steinwald was survived by his wife, Dora,
and a daughter, Samantha of Honolulu, Hawaii. It was such a shock to
read those words I couldn't believe they were true at first. Then I
noticed the name of the town where Steinwald had died. It was the same
town in northern California that Samantha had claimed she was from.
It didn't make sense. Why would Samantha tell me her father was an
apricot farmer when he was a world-famous artist? I was more than
curious, I had to solve this mystery or go crazy. The next morning I
went to the public library and started researching the life of Robert
Steinwald. He grew up in poverty in New York City, but became a
successful artist by his his early twenties and married an Ivy League
college girl. They waited 17 years to have thier only child, Samantha.
I liked Steinwald's artwork. It was a strange mixture of surrealism
and graphic naturalism in the style of Soviet poster art. Steinwald
was a left-wing activist dedicated to social justice and by all
accounts a warm and personable man. Again, I was wracked by questions.
Why had Samantha hated her father and wanted to have him killed? Her
mother was a writer and poet who remained married to Robert for 60
years until he died. I was a budding writer myself when Samantha and I
lived together. Why hadn't she mentioned the fact that her mother was
a fellow writer? Had she hated her mother as well? How could a
daughter despise these intelligent and compassionate parents?
As I read various biographical information about the Steinwald family,
I noticed that certain key facts were in conflict with what Samantha
had told me about her past. Her parents hadn't moved to California
until 1976 when Samantha was 18. By that time she was enrolled in a
college in Vancouver, Canada, where she stayed until she got her
master's degree five years later.
The truth slowly dawned on me. Samantha had lied when she told
everyone she was from a little town in California. She had grown up in
New York City as the only child of a wealthy and famous artist. This
information was vital to understanding her personality. I could just
picture little Samantha being chauffered in a limosine to an exclusive
private school to be spoiled by over-indulgent teachers. Without
exception, every New Yorker I have ever known thought they were better
than other people. The rest of us were hicks from the hinterlands who
picked their teeth with straw.
With a rush of comprehension, I realized I had lived with "Daisy" and
never knew it. I refer to the femme fatale from F. Scott Fitzgerald's
novel "The Great Gatsby": a spoiled and selfish young woman who
flaunted her money, used sex to control men and had little respect for
human life. No wonder Samantha grew bitter when her parents moved to a
berg in California. It ruined her chance to become a New York
socialite like Daisy.
Suddenly, everything fell into place. The $10,000 hadn't come from any
smuggling operation. That was another lie to impress me. The money was
a gift from her generous father so she could travel and live in exotic
places such as Hawaii. Only it wasn't enough for Samantha. Like all
spoiled children, she wanted more. She wanted all of her father's
money at once and she was greedy enough to have him murdered if
necessary to get it while she was still young. I wondered if Robert
Steinwald knew he had raised a sociopath. Or did he blind himself to
his daughter's reprehensible character flaws because he loved her? I
wished I could have met him before he died.
I found no satisfaction in deconstructing Samantha. After I removed
the veil of deceptions, resolved the contradictions and penetrated the
riddles, there was nothing left of her that interested me. She was now
a middle-aged woman spending the inheritance she had coveted for
decades, perhaps living with a gigolo on the French Riviera or
storming the New York social scene at last. But no amount of money
could bring back her youth or redeem her soul. In moments of
compassion I viewed Samantha as a tragic figure who had no love to
give anyone.
Aris Merquoni
> DECONSTRUCTING SAMANTHA
You describe the main character of the story as a walking
contradiction, yet you make no effort to allow the audience to
understand her. Your narrator is, from the beginning, objective to the
point of uncaring. It's hard to understand why he kept a relationship
up with her, much less gave her expensive goodbye presents.
It was the same observation the jabootu.com folks made about Boxing
Helena - the woman in question has no redeeming qualities, so why
should we care? And your narrator doesn't seem to, leaving us flat.
The lack of a real resolution to their relationship hurt the story as
well. I was expecting him to meet her again and figure out what she
really was then, drag the story from her.
Your techincal writing skills are excellent, though. The story just
needs meat.
A few nits:
> When I read the dictionary definition, I realized immediately it was
> the ideal mindset to reach an understanding of Samantha Steinwald.
Your first line might want to suggest a closer connection to Samantha;
she's the guy's fantasy ex-lover, but we're getting a philosophical
brush-off.
> She
> was a walking contradiction: a Jewess who once told me she thought her
> people got what they deserved in Nazi Germany; a self-proclaimed
> lesbian who couldn't keep her hands off of men; a chameleon who could
> make her face look Asian or Latin as if by magic; a female riddle and
> pathological liar who hid behind different versions of herself; a
> vegetarian who was kind to animals but wanted someone to murder her
> father; an educated, intelligent woman fond of gutter humor. She was
> the angel of death disguised in the body of a Playboy centerfold
> model. I once told her I was in love with her body, which was true
> because there was nothing else about her to love.
This might be interesting if your narrator was obsessed with her
anyway, but all I understand about her right now is that she's a
totally repulsive person. I've also never heard a Jewsh woman call
herself a 'Jewess'... and I'd leave that Nazi line until the end, it's
the most disturbing and probably should end the roll call, not begin
it.
> That was Samantha when she was 27 years old going on 12.
I like this line.
> After I moved to Kauai, I lost track of Samantha. The last time I saw
> her she was working as a "mermaid" -- a SCUBA diving guide for
> tourists. I thought the connection to a mythological creature of
> beauty fit her in a strangely perfect way.
Aren't they also the evil sea-critters that lure sailors from their
boats and then drag them into the deeps?
> This mermaid had never even
> thanked me for the underwater camera I gave her.
The concern for the camera seems odd. The 'I gave her' makes the
sentence clunky; maybe just 'she never even thanked me for the
camera.'
> Well, that was the end of it -- or so I thought. A few months later a
> newspaper article I stumbled across almost by accident led me to a
> series of stunning discoveries about my ex-lover. Deconstructing
> Samatha was like waking up from a dream. As I pursued my
> investigation, I became obsessed with the disturbing realization that
> I had never actually known who Samantha was.
I was expecting a bigger revelation at this point than "she was a
snotty brat", but I guess I could take that... if I got to see the
payoff. The kind of buildup you're creating deserves a confrontation
between the main characters.
> The last line said Robert Steinwald was survived by his wife, Dora,
> and a daughter, Samantha of Honolulu, Hawaii. It was such a shock to
> read those words I couldn't believe they were true at first. Then I
> noticed the name of the town where Steinwald had died. It was the same
> town in northern California that Samantha had claimed she was from.
Redding? Marin? Stockton? Sacramento? Davis? Grab an atlas.
> It didn't make sense. Why would Samantha tell me her father was an
> apricot farmer when he was a world-famous artist? I was more than
> curious, I had to solve this mystery or go crazy.
If he's this interested, why doesn't he feel the need to confront her
about her lies? If he's obsessed with her, why doesn't he track her
down and... I'll cut it out.
> I liked Steinwald's artwork. It was a strange mixture of surrealism
> and graphic naturalism in the style of Soviet poster art. Steinwald
> was a left-wing activist dedicated to social justice and by all
> accounts a warm and personable man.
Probably didn't live in Redding, then.
> As I read various biographical information about the Steinwald family,
> I noticed that certain key facts were in conflict with what Samantha
> had told me about her past. Her parents hadn't moved to California
> until 1976 when Samantha was 18. By that time she was enrolled in a
> college in Vancouver, Canada, where she stayed until she got her
> master's degree five years later.
Quick study.
> The truth slowly dawned on me. Samantha had lied when she told
> everyone she was from a little town in California. She had grown up in
> New York City as the only child of a wealthy and famous artist. This
> information was vital to understanding her personality. I could just
> picture little Samantha being chauffered in a limosine to an exclusive
> private school to be spoiled by over-indulgent teachers. Without
> exception, every New Yorker I have ever known thought they were better
> than other people. The rest of us were hicks from the hinterlands who
> picked their teeth with straw.
Okay. One, all generalizations are false, even that one; as a reader I
don't trust those details without verification(from Sam herself,
perhaps.) Two, the attitude is pretty prevalent among Northern
Californians, too, depending on what flavor of Northern Californian
you pick. When you mentioned she looked either Latin or Asian, I
pictured her as a Bay Area native. Sunnyvale? Saratoga? Cupertino?
Palo Alto? None of the apricot farm lines would work, but your main
character wouldn't need to know that...
> With a rush of comprehension, I realized I had lived with "Daisy" and
> never knew it. I refer to the femme fatale from F. Scott Fitzgerald's
> novel "The Great Gatsby": a spoiled and selfish young woman who
> flaunted her money, used sex to control men and had little respect for
> human life. No wonder Samantha grew bitter when her parents moved to a
> berg in California. It ruined her chance to become a New York
> socialite like Daisy.
Why do you assume we'll get the Lolita reference and not the Gatsby
one? It's distracting; I'd cut the explaination and just say something
like "I'd been living with Daisy from The Great Gatsby and never
realized it"
This recitation of facts isn't exciting; you haven't made us care
enough for either of the characters to make it a stunning revelation.
> I found no satisfaction in deconstructing Samantha.
And that's the real problem, isn't it?
- Aris
Victoria Ellis
From: William Starr Moake <wsm...@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups: alt.fiction.original
Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2002 9:33 AM
Subject: Story (2121 words)
>
> DECONSTRUCTING SAMANTHA
>
Hi :)
This dragged me in. I wasn't aiming to read a story this evening. I found
it interesting and readable. I was a little disappointed at the end. I
felt is lacked some decisive conclusion - maybe a twist in the tale... But
other than that, a thought provoking narrative. I enjoyed the detatchment
of the narrator towards Samantha - this helped provide the impression that
he no longer harboured any emotional attachment.
Thanks for the post - I look forward to reading more. If I may say so, when
I was halfway through I felt as if I was reading a short story from a Sunday
Paper supplement and wondered whether you do enjoy publishing success.
Take care
Vicky
--
Submit a chapter - writing competition - www.communalconstruction.com
To contact me remove 'SPAM' from e-mail address!
William Starr Moake
<vi...@SPAMcommunalconstruction.com> wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: William Starr Moake <wsm...@yahoo.com>
>Newsgroups: alt.fiction.original
>Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2002 9:33 AM
>Subject: Story (2121 words)
>> DECONSTRUCTING SAMANTHA
>
>This dragged me in. I wasn't aiming to read a story this evening. I found
>it interesting and readable ... If I may say so, when
I was halfway through I felt as if I was reading a short story from a
SundayPaper supplement and wondered whether you do enjoy publishing
success.
Vicky,
Thanks for the kind words. I have two published paperbacks, a
novel and a collection of short stories, but they haven't made much
money. I was also a journalist for several years.
In case you (or Aris) is interested, this is a true story and I
had to change certain facts to protect the guilty and avoid a lawsuit.
"Samantha" is now rich enough to hire very good lawyers.
Bill
Quadpus
> the ideal mindset to reach an understanding of Samantha Steinwald. She
> was a walking contradiction: a Jewess who once told me she thought her
> people got what they deserved in Nazi Germany;
This is pretty serious, but you treat it with the same gravitas as
her bisexuality and exotic good looks. It has nothing whatsoever to
do with anything else in the story, so I'd cut it.
> The truth slowly dawned on me. Samantha had lied when she told
> everyone she was from a little town in California. She had grown up in
> New York City as the only child of a wealthy and famous artist. This
> information was vital to understanding her personality. I could just
> picture little Samantha being chauffered in a limosine to an exclusive
> private school to be spoiled by over-indulgent teachers.
It seems out of character for a "left-wing activist" and artist to
raise his daughter this way.
> With a rush of comprehension, I realized I had lived with "Daisy" and
> never knew it. I refer to the femme fatale from F. Scott Fitzgerald's
> novel "The Great Gatsby": a spoiled and selfish young woman who
> flaunted her money, used sex to control men and had little respect for
> human life. No wonder Samantha grew bitter when her parents moved to a
> berg in California. It ruined her chance to become a New York
> socialite like Daisy.
These literary references aren't really working for me. In a short
piece like this it seems less like clever intertextuality and more
like wearing your influences on your sleeve.
> I found no satisfaction in deconstructing Samantha. After I removed
> the veil of deceptions, resolved the contradictions and penetrated the
> riddles, there was nothing left of her that interested me. She was now
> a middle-aged woman spending the inheritance she had coveted for
> decades, perhaps living with a gigolo on the French Riviera or
> storming the New York social scene at last. But no amount of money
> could bring back her youth or redeem her soul. In moments of
> compassion I viewed Samantha as a tragic figure who had no love to
> give anyone.
The narrator hasn't so much "deconstructed" Samantha; he just dug up
some dirt on her upbringing. And this tossed-off speculation and
smug censure we get at the end doesn't reflect well on his character,
nor does it make for a satisfying finale. This is a well-written piece,
and an interesting character study of Samantha. An episode from
Samantha's life might make a good story -- better, certainly, than
listening to an unsympathetic narrator gripe about his inability to get
along with her.
Alaric
me - I felt like I was listening to gossip, which I never pay much attention
to (did you hear about Barry and the oversexed koala?) but in general, I did
like it. Read very smoothly, and I like the effect of this woman ebbing and
flowing through his life.
Nice job.
"William Starr Moake" <wsm...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:e0hhlukfl4346pd6e...@4ax.com...
>
R. Westermeyer
<wsm...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: William Starr Moake <wsm...@yahoo.com>
>>Newsgroups: alt.fiction.original
>>Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2002 9:33 AM
>>Subject: Story (2121 words)
>
>>> DECONSTRUCTING SAMANTHA
> Thanks for the kind words. I have two published paperbacks, a
>novel and a collection of short stories, but they haven't made much
>money. I was also a journalist for several years.
> In case you (or Aris) is interested, this is a true story and I
>had to change certain facts to protect the guilty and avoid a lawsuit.
>"Samantha" is now rich enough to hire very good lawyers.
>
>Bill
Congratulations.
I sort of wish you hadn't revealed that it was a true story. It came
across to me as a piece of revenge catharsis. Though there are some
good parts, it lacks the structure of the sort of short I like and
comes across as just a history of an axis II nightmare.
It would be interesting to read other of your material.
--Robert
Pat J. O'Brien
"William Starr Moake" <wsm...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:e0hhlukfl4346pd6e...@4ax.com...
>
> DECONSTRUCTING SAMANTHA
You're cribbing from Woody Allen with that title. I has a nice ring, though.
> 1
>
> (Deconstructionism: A philosophical theory of interpretation that
> seeks to expose deep-seated contradictions by delving below the
> surface meaning.)
To presume your readers can't define Deconstructionism sets a bad tone. I
don't have a problem with the word "deconstructionism," but it is a topic
that is being hotly debated these days (see Stanley Fish's article in the
July 2002 Harper's, and Jonah Goldberg's reaction on National Review Online
to get a taste), so if you're going to use it, be prepared to take a
position either pro or con. The defintion you have selected serves your
purposes, but it's not a great defintion.
> When I read the dictionary definition, I realized immediately it was
> the ideal mindset to reach an understanding of Samantha Steinwald. She
> was a walking contradiction: a Jewess who once told me she thought her
> people got what they deserved in Nazi Germany; a self-proclaimed
> lesbian who couldn't keep her hands off of men; a chameleon who could
> make her face look Asian or Latin as if by magic; a female riddle and
> pathological liar who hid behind different versions of herself; a
> vegetarian who was kind to animals but wanted someone to murder her
> father; an educated, intelligent woman fond of gutter humor. She was
> the angel of death disguised in the body of a Playboy centerfold
> model. I once told her I was in love with her body, which was true
> because there was nothing else about her to love.
"Dictionary definition" is redundant, "mindset" is the wrong word. "A
walking contradiction" points out the weaknesses of your defintion of
deconstructionism. Deconstructionism contextualizes, and in so doing may or
may not expose inherent contradictions. With regard to the word "Jewess,"
exercise great caution. I dislike it, but that could be personal. By the
same token, I would never use the word "Negress." The word "model" is
unnecessary. A mediocre paragraph, but I'm intrigued by the description of
Samantha. The first sentence is the weakest. Deconstructionism fits,
actually.
> I met Samantha a long time ago in Honolulu. I hated her nickname, Sam,
> but I was hypnotized by her physical beauty the first time I saw her.
> She was young with hazel eyes, shoulder-length black hair and a
> certain sadness in her expression even when she smiled. She wanted me to
take her to
> Tierra del Fuego, the wind-swept wasteland at the tip of South
> America, explaining that she simply had to see the ends of the earth
> before she died. I loved Hawaii and wanted to stay in the islands.
Be more specific than "a long time ago," unless there's a reason to be
general. (Deconstructionism is about specificity, if you think about it.)
You need to do better than "certain." Good paragraph. This sentence bothers
me: "We lived together for awhile and our relationship continued for two
years after I forced her to move out of my apartment." It disrupts the
rhythm somehow.
> We fought like tigers over this and other issues such as money. I
> recall the day she left her checkbook open on the kitchen table and
> then went to buy a newspaper, knowing I would take a look at the
> balance. At the time I was struggling to pay the rent and keep us from
> starving with a low-paying job I despised. And there was her bank
> balance of $10,000 staring me in the face. She denied that she had
> left the checkbook open on purpose, but it was such an obvious lie I
> wanted to smack her. I told her I wasn't impressed by the money she
> had stashed away, but from then on she would damn well contribute
> toward the rent and food or else move her sweet ass out of my
> apartment. She reacted by calling ME a cheapskate!
>
> It wasn't long afterward that she mentioned how much she hated her
> father, whom she said owned an apricot farm in northern California.
> She hinted that she would be willing to pay someone to kill him.
>
> "Is that why you let me see your checkbook?" I asked.
>
> "I told you it was an accident," she insisted.
>
> "Where did you get all that money?"
>
> Samantha went into a long explanation about being paid to smuggle
> currency in suitcases between the U.S. and Canada. It sounded
> plausible and I didn't question her story.
> But I was shocked that she thought I was the kind of man who would
> consider killing anyone for money. I warned her never to broach the
> subject again.
>
> Samantha enjoyed sex and she was very good at it, but displays of
> ordinary affection seemed repulsive to her. He nodded sympathetically
> and said: "If you can't trust your old lady, then who the hell can you
> trust?" That was a good question which gnawed at me.
"I recall telling a friend I didn't trust Samantha when we were living
together," is ambiguous. Did you mistrust her when you lived together; or
did you, while you and Samantha lived together, tell a friend that you
mistrusted her? "Seemed repulsive" could be "repulsed her." "Every time she
recoiled
from a hug or a kiss on the cheek it made me feel like an ogre and this
eroded my passion for her" could be two sentences. Also, does passion erode?
A solid, definite thing can erode. You need a different verb here. This
paragraph is weak.
> One afternoon, while Samantha and I were driving to the beach, she
> suggested that we get married. In the same breath she said she felt
> sorry for any man who married her. It was so comical I burst out
> laughing.
>
> "You don't even know how to be a girlfriend," I told her. "Why in the
> world would you want to get married?"
>
> "Forget it," she said, withdrawing into a mask of indifference.
I like "Mask of indifference."
> "You wouldn't be happy as a wife," I remarked. "Take my word for it."
" I said. "
> "Let's not talk about it."
>
> "You brought it up, not me."
>
> She folded her arms. "Will you please shut up and just drive? It's hot
> as hell in this car."
>
> I turned on the fan. "Don't sulk about it, for Chrissakes."
>
> "You're still talking."
The dialogue is good. Best part of the story so far.
> After she moved out of the apartment, Samantha returned often to stay
> overnight. I knew she didn't love me, that the sex was merely a tool
> to keep me dangling, but I went along because I was horny and lonely
> living alone. I represented a challenge to her. She was accustomed to
> getting her way and I think I was the first man ever to say no to her.
>
> That was Samantha when she was 27 years old going on 12. She always
> reminded me of a willful pre-teen in a woman's body, a case of
> emotionally arrested development. She had a master's degree in
> sociology and could discuss any intellectual subject with deftness,
> but when it came to matters of the heart, she was pathetically lacking
> in adult insight.
"That was Samantha when she was 27 years old going on 12. She always
reminded me of a willful pre-teen in a woman's body, a case of emotionally
arrested development." You're saying the same thing two different ways.
"With deftness" should be "deftly." This is good: "She was also prone to
clumsiness, another childish trait that belied her gorgeous physical
maturity."
> After I moved to Kauai, I lost track of Samantha. The last time I saw
> her she was working as a "mermaid" -- a SCUBA diving guide for
> tourists. I thought the connection to a mythological creature of
> beauty fit her in a strangely perfect way. I gave her an expensive
> underwater camera that she could use in her job, hoping this would
> serve as a final peace offering. She said she didn't want it, which
> infuriated me.
>
> "Then throw it in the ocean," I said. "I don't give a damn what you do
> with it."
>
> The day before I left for Kauai, I received a note from Samantha along
> with two photographs. The note said: "As you can see, I didn't throw
> the camera away as you suggested." One photograph showed a tourist
> underwater. The other was Samantha posing nude on a boulder. On the
> back of this photograph she had written: "See what you are missing?"
>
> I laughed until tears formed in my eyes and my stomach ached. My buxom
> Lolita wanted to torture her poor Humbert one last time.
The Lolita analogy is inapt, for obvious reasons having to do with
Samantha's age.
> 2
>
>
> It would be a lie to claim I forgot about Samantha over the years. She
> was the sort of girl who lingered in the memory like a haunting
> mirage. I thought about her from time to time, but I never tried to
> contact her until recently. I was surprised to discover that she was
> still working as a "mermaid" in Honolulu. I e-mailed a brief message
> to the dive shop, hoping we could catch up on each other's lives. I
> was curious about her, but contacting a former girlfriend is always a
> dicey business, so I was careful to sound politely casual in the
> message.
"Haunting mirage" is weak. But not a bad paragraph.
> The reply I received was disappointing to say the least. It was from
> the dive shop owner, who wrote: "Samantha says she doesn't remember
> ever having a friend in Honolulu with your name." The wording
> contained a subtle message. She remembered me, all right, but not as a
> friend. I shook my head in disgust. This mermaid had never even
> thanked me for the underwater camera I gave her.
"The reply I received was disappointing to say the least" dosen't flow.
> Well, that was the end of it -- or so I thought. A few months later a
> newspaper article I stumbled across almost by accident led me to a
> series of stunning discoveries about my ex-lover. Deconstructing
> Samatha was like waking up from a dream. As I pursued my
> investigation, I became obsessed with the disturbing realization that
> I had never actually known who Samantha was.
Get rid of "Well." I like "Deconstructing Samatha was like waking up from a
dream."
> The article was about an artist named Rober Steinwald, who had died at
> age 87 from pnuemonia. I am not knowledgeable about art and I had
> never heard of him, but the article said he was considered one of the
> great American artists of his time. Of course, the last name was the
> same as Samantha's and I suppose that is why I continued to read his
> obituary. I thought he might be a distant relative.
>
> The last line said Robert Steinwald was survived by his wife, Dora,
> and a daughter, Samantha of Honolulu, Hawaii. It was such a shock to
> read those words I couldn't believe they were true at first. Then I
> noticed the name of the town where Steinwald had died. It was the same
> town in northern California that Samantha had claimed she was from.
This sentence: "It was such a shock to read those words I couldn't believe
they were true at first" is a little soft. Not bad, though. Don't neeed
"Then I noticed."
> It didn't make sense. Why would Samantha tell me her father was an
> apricot farmer when he was a world-famous artist? I was more than
> curious, I had to solve this mystery or go crazy. The next morning I
> went to the public library and started researching the life of Robert
> Steinwald. He grew up in poverty in New York City, but became a
> successful artist by his his early twenties and married an Ivy League
> college girl. They waited 17 years to have thier only child, Samantha.
Typo "by his his early." Good paragraph.
> I liked Steinwald's artwork. It was a strange mixture of surrealism
> and graphic naturalism in the style of Soviet poster art. Steinwald
> was a left-wing activist dedicated to social justice and by all
> accounts a warm and personable man. Again, I was wracked by questions.
> Why had Samantha hated her father and wanted to have him killed? Her
> mother was a writer and poet who remained married to Robert for 60
> years until he died. I was a budding writer myself when Samantha and I
> lived together. Why hadn't she mentioned the fact that her mother was
> a fellow writer? Had she hated her mother as well? How could a
> daughter despise these intelligent and compassionate parents?
Lose the word "strange" in the second sentence. Good paragraph.
> As I read various biographical information about the Steinwald family,
> I noticed that certain key facts were in conflict with what Samantha
> had told me about her past. Her parents hadn't moved to California
> until 1976 when Samantha was 18. By that time she was enrolled in a
> college in Vancouver, Canada, where she stayed until she got her
> master's degree five years later.
Lose the word "various" in the first sentence, and lose "about her past."
> The truth slowly dawned on me. Samantha had lied when she told
> everyone she was from a little town in California. She had grown up in
> New York City as the only child of a wealthy and famous artist. This
> information was vital to understanding her personality. I could just
> picture little Samantha being chauffered in a limosine to an exclusive
> private school to be spoiled by over-indulgent teachers. Without
> exception, every New Yorker I have ever known thought they were better
> than other people. The rest of us were hicks from the hinterlands who
> picked their teeth with straw.
Good paragraph.
> With a rush of comprehension, I realized I had lived with "Daisy" and
> never knew it. I refer to the femme fatale from F. Scott Fitzgerald's
> novel "The Great Gatsby": a spoiled and selfish young woman who
> flaunted her money, used sex to control men and had little respect for
> human life. No wonder Samantha grew bitter when her parents moved to a
> berg in California. It ruined her chance to become a New York
> socialite like Daisy.
If your going to deconstruct somebody with literary allusions, the books had
better be postmodern. The Great Gatsby is, again, inapt.
> Suddenly, everything fell into place. The $10,000 hadn't come from any
> smuggling operation. That was another lie to impress me. The money was
> a gift from her generous father so she could travel and live in exotic
> places such as Hawaii. Only it wasn't enough for Samantha. Like all
> spoiled children, she wanted more. She wanted all of her father's
> money at once and she was greedy enough to have him murdered if
> necessary to get it while she was still young. I wondered if Robert
> Steinwald knew he had raised a sociopath. Or did he blind himself to
> his daughter's reprehensible character flaws because he loved her? I
> wished I could have met him before he died.
>
> I found no satisfaction in deconstructing Samantha. After I removed
> the veil of deceptions, resolved the contradictions and penetrated the
> riddles, there was nothing left of her that interested me. She was now
> a middle-aged woman spending the inheritance she had coveted for
> decades, perhaps living with a gigolo on the French Riviera or
> storming the New York social scene at last. But no amount of money
> could bring back her youth or redeem her soul. In moments of
> compassion I viewed Samantha as a tragic figure who had no love to
> give anyone.
Nice story. A few problems here and there. In fairness, the title sets the
bar pretty high. It reminds me of a story by Saul Bellow called "Zetland: By
a Character Witness."
Pat
Ejucaided Redneck
> Thanks for the kind words. I have two published paperbacks, a
> novel and a collection of short stories, but they haven't made much
> money. I was also a journalist for several years.
Hardly anybody _does_ make money with iUniverse or the other PoD
outfits.
Nice to see sombody being honest about it.
--
A person who is nice to you,
but rude to the waiter, is not
a nice person.
-- Dave Barry
--
New stories, new essays, new pages:
http://bobsloan.home.mindspring.com/
Ejucaided Redneck
> DECONSTRUCTING SAMANTHA
> When I read the dictionary definition, I realized immediately it was
> the ideal mindset to reach an understanding of Samantha Steinwald.
Not exactly a "hook" opening. Was it my story I'd drop it altogether
and just jump into the story.
> She was a walking contradiction: a Jewess who once told me she thought her
> people got what they deserved in Nazi Germany;
"Jewess" is a loaded word with connotations and connections you perhaps
didn't intend, but which will be in readers' minds anyway.
> a self-proclaimed lesbian who couldn't keep her hands off of men; a chameleon
> who could make her face look Asian or Latin as if by magic; a female riddle and
> pathological liar who hid behind different versions of herself; a
> vegetarian who was kind to animals but wanted someone to murder her
> father; an educated, intelligent woman fond of gutter humor.
Nice description. I think I married her sister in 1972.
> She was the angel of death disguised in the body of a Playboy
> centerfold model.
What if you found a contrasting image less trite than the Playboy
reference, one that would connect more directly with the "angel of
death?"
> I once told her I was in love with her body, which was true because there was
> nothing else about her to love.
Throughout this piece there were lines --this was the first-- that
struck me as needing an edit. Too many words, and not nearly as
immediate as the lines could be. F'rinstance, in the above sentence, "I
was in love with her body because there was nothing else about her to
love" would carry all the sense of the original, in fewer syllables, and
with more force. There's lots of this in the piece.
> I met Samantha a long time ago in Honolulu. I hated her nickname, Sam,
> but I was hypnotized by her physical beauty the first time I saw her.
> She was young with hazel eyes, shoulder-length black hair and a
> certain sadness in her expression even when she smiled. We lived
> together for awhile and our relationship continued for two years after
> I forced her to move out of my apartment. She wanted me to take her to
> Tierra del Fuego, the wind-swept wasteland at the tip of South
> America, explaining that she simply had to see the ends of the earth
> before she died. I loved Hawaii and wanted to stay in the islands.
Lots of telling as opposed to showing. You cover a lot of ground in
this piece, a lot of time. Why not make the effort to _show_ what it
was like to live with this woman rather than just tell it?
> We fought like tigers over this and other issues such as money.
Betcha can find a stronger simile than "fought like tigers."
<snippage>
Your prose, for me, reads "flat," with no animation, no life. And no
explanation --apart from "I was horny and lonely"-- to explain why your
narrator put up with this abusive loon
> I found no satisfaction in deconstructing Samantha.
Do you expect readers' reactions to be different than your own?
> In moments of compassion I viewed Samantha as a tragic figure who had
> no love to give anyone.
Be interesting to see this figure in the piece.
--
Gonna get me a shotgun
Just as long as I'm tall...
Gonna shoot poor Thelma
Just to watch her jump and fall.
--- Jimmy Rogers, "T For Texas"
Jake
> Vicky,
> Thanks for the kind words. I have two published paperbacks, a
> novel and a collection of short stories, but they haven't made much
> money. I was also a journalist for several years.
> In case you (or Aris) is interested, this is a true story and I
> had to change certain facts to protect the guilty and avoid a lawsuit.
> "Samantha" is now rich enough to hire very good lawyers.
>
I just did a search of your works on amazon.com. Just out of curiosity, do
you consider The Paradise Connection a novel or a novella or something else?
William Starr Moake
wrote:
>>
>>I have two published paperbacks, a
>> novel and a collection of short stories, but they haven't made much
>> money.
>I just did a search of your works on amazon.com. Just out of curiosity, do
>you consider The Paradise Connection a novel or a novella or something else?
>
It could be described as a novella, a short novel or a long story.
Such categories mean very little to me. That's the publisher's
problem. I have enough trouble doing the writing part.
Bill