Two Men by Andrew Porter, 2022
The magic trick:
A finely crafted story that doesn’t feel like it required otherworldly talent to create
I think very highly of this story – and not just because I relate so painfully hard to the narrator’s middle-aged-but-new-parent situation and perspective.
I think it makes an ideal target on which to aim for an aspiring writer. I mean, it’s an excellent, excellent story; one that would likely take a writer a decade or more to work up to if they ever made it at all.
But… that being said, it doesn’t feel totally unreachable. I don’t mean this as a criticism, but it does not read like the work of an otherworldly pure talent. It’s simply a finely crafted, thoughtful story that leaves in and leaves out in just the right proportion.
And that’s quite a trick on Porter’s part.
The selection:
“Like I said, I think we should call the police,” Ellen said.
But for some reason no one replied to this, and nobody moved. We just stood there in the kitchen waiting, all of us a little intrigued by the situation, excited by the possibility of watching a burglary in progress, even if the burglary was happening to us. To be honest, if I had had anything of value back there in the shed, I might have cared more, but I didn’t. It was mostly just tools, which I rarely used, and a water purifier and maybe a few ceramic pots. I probably hadn’t been back there in close to six months.
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