Category: Senior Literary

This category features the works of senior literary students at Mississippi School of the Arts.

The Green Mile by Stephen King

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Stephen King’s The Green Mile is a recollection by the elderly Paul Edgecombe of his days as a prison guard. Paul was a guard for the E block of the prison, where prisoners are kept until their executions via electric chair—the floor of the E block is bright green, earning it the title of the Green Mile. Paul finds his job to be a never-ending cycle of prisoner comes in, prisoner stays, prisoner goes, etc. Lately, he has to grapple with Percy Wetmore, a young prison guard who uses connections to higher-ups as an excuse to abuse the prisoners, and Eduard Delacroix, an insane but seemingly harmless inmate with an amazingly intelligent mouse named Mr. Jingles. While Paul and the other guards think nothing of the inmates, their minds change when they meet John Coffey—a giant of a man found guilty of the rape and murder of two little girls. Though Coffey is quiet at first, the guards soon realize that there is more to him than meets the eye—a superpower, perhaps, that doubles as a curse.

As with all of his works, King has an eye for dialogue and detail. I saw every image and heard every conversation as perfectly as possible. Though the characters use expressions we don’t in reality, they did not feel out of place. And though not every moment of the book is packed with suspense and drama, I rarely ever felt bored with it. The cuts to the present-day elderly Paul calmed things down, but did not damage the overall experience, something that most past-and-present-spliced books find difficult to pull off. Delacroix, Wetmore, Coffey, and Wharton were all characters with fantastic characterizations that made them stand out from one another. The plot of the book does not have a typical point-A-to-point-B formatting. The book does not build up to something over its course; arguably, the climax of the book happens a little over halfway through, with the rest tying up loose ends.

On the downside, some of these details can border on unnecessary—one will probably tire of how often the act of urinating is detailed in this book. The first part of the book that focuses so heavily on Mr. Jingles the mouse can also be irksome to get through. And though some of the characters stand out so greatly, others, mostly the prison guards, do not. In all honesty, the only thing I ever knew to differentiate them by was the knowledge that Brutal was the tall and muscular one. That’s it.

The book gives a message that can be hard to swallow: we will all do bad things, some more than others, and how soon we will have to make up for them is unknown. Characters like Wetmore and Percy, without giving away details, exemplify true evils in humans with no remorse for their actions. Meanwhile, characters like Paul and Coffey spend much of their time questioning their choices and wondering if they have done the right thing. The ‘twist’ in the book is also well-executed, as I legitimately did not see it coming, and the smaller ‘twist’ at the end further proves the book’s message.

The Green Mile is deep, dark, and contemplative, and I’d recommend it to everyone.

The term that will turn the heads of so many Mississippians… “Y’all”

“The summer of ‘86, DeVante got jumped by two old sixteen-year-old Vice Lords from West Jackson.”(Laymon)

 

This short story by Kiese Laymon, had to be one of my good reads for the month. The story “I Mean Y’all” was one I came across on his website. Also included in the tile was the description, a “short short short story,” and the purpose of me reading it was definitely not from the detail added to the title. The thing that caught my attention was the title itself, “I Mean Y’all”. The title brings so many nostalgic moments for me being a girl who grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. To many people, it may seem as just a southern slang, but to me, it reminded me of the people I’ve been around for so long. The way they talk, and the familiarity of the slang that I have grown so accustomed to.

Mr. Kiese Laymon does a great job of going straight into the story with detailing of the characters. Details that I can only imagine people growing up in the urban schools of Jackson, Mississippi will understand. His diction is very relaxed, and after a while of reading it, you can almost hear his voice telling you the story himself. For some, that may seem uninteresting, but I can most definitely say that if you have taken the time to speak with Mr. Laymon, you will soon see he is quite the character, and his work reflects his characteristics greatly.

Mr. Laymon has a way of writing works that take you along for a ride, and before you know it, you are being slammed into by a truck on a busy highway. His messages within his work are powerful, and they ease up on the reader in the swiftest way.

A disclaimer, however, that I must give is that this work, as well as many of his other works, are not and I do repeat not for the faint-hearted. It is a short story that is vulgar, honest, and very uncensored; however, I do believe that if the work were not written as it is, then it would miss the rawness of the content. Being a young adult such as myself, who has grown in the community of many other Jackson residents, South and West particularly, I am familiar with the language. The story felt like one I have heard of or even seen before. The people within the story feel like people that I know too well, and that is what I admire most about the piece. I enjoy the way it feels as though Mr. Laymon had the ability to capture the culture and characteristics of the people I have grown to know.

The story, although again its content is very explicit, is a read that I do not regret finding. The work inspires me to embrace my surroundings, and to keep my memories and experiences as close to the surface of my mind as possible. Because even years later, they may be as vital to me then as they were before.

Howl’s Moving Castle — Diana Wynne Jones

The Overview:

Diana Wynne Jones’s 1986 fantasy novel, Howl’s Moving Castle, is about Sophie Hatter, who after disrespecting a maniacal witch, is transformed from a beautiful eighteen-year-old woman to a ninety-year old woman. Unable to speak about her cursed, she is forced to move in with Howl Pendragon (or Howell Jenkins, if you go by his birth name), a wizard notorious for swallowing young girls’ hearts, Michael, his young apprentice, and Calcifer, a fire demon. She makes a deal with Calcifer, who promises to break Sophie’s curse if she breaks his.

(BONUS) The Characters:

Sophie is an extremely strange, but refreshing choice for a protagonist. She does not react to situations the way a normal person would. Arguably, this makes her less relatable, but she makes up for it by being interesting. In the beginning of the story, she acknowledges Howl’s handsomeness, but she is repulsed by it, rather than attracted to it. When someone calls her a witch and says she has accidentally cast a spell over Howl’s clothes to make him irresistible to all women, she shrugs and thinks to herself, “Well, that sounds like me, messing up as usual,” despite never having prior knowledge of any magical ability whatsoever. She is, however, easily influenced emotionally. She gets jealous whenever Howl is out courting, mad when her younger sister tries to convince her their mother is manipulating her, and irritated when Calcifer is not direct with her.

How(el)l Pendragon (or Jenkins) is the most vain, supercilious, cowardly, good- natured, cleverest, funniest deuteragonist I have read about in a long time. He is used to getting his way and is not above throwing temper- tantrums, including forcing green slime to ooze out of his skin, when the slightest thing does not go as planned. He takes pleasure sending people out to ‘blacken his name”, just so he will not have to do work. On sight, most people who meet him either fall in love with him or despise the very dirt he stands on. He is not to be trifled with, however. He has been known to intimidate people and even Calcifer, a fire demon.

Michael is a meek boy and there is nothing particular special about him, excluding his diligence. He loves like a normal boy and gets depressed over mediocre things like a normal boy. But I would say this works in his favor because Howl and Sophie have such unusual personalities, that more absurdness might make the book too off-putting.

Lastly, Calcifer. Calcifer is a bit of an antihero, being a demon, but being on the side of “good.” He does mostly what Howl says due to a mystery contract, but he will not stand to be disparaged. He argues with everyone is the house, and is even a little creepy just in his description.

It would be a thin blue face…very long and thin, with a thin blue nose….And those purple flames near the bottom make the mouth– you have savage teeth, my friend…

A Potential Turn-off:

I’ve thought long and hard about what could possibly turn someone off from this book. I guess the sheer abundance of characters might be it. There a lot of characters including: Sophie, Howl, Michael, Calcifer, the Witch of Waster, Sophie’s two sisters and step-mother, Howl’s sister, nephews, and ex-magic teacher, the King and his brother and daughter, Miss Angorian, a creepy scarecrow, a dog-man, and I’m probably forgetting more.

An Appealing Factor: 

Everything. Mostly Howl’s dry humor.

My Rating:

It’s been a long time since I got angry I had to put a book down. I rate Howl’s Moving Castle ten out of ten stars. Buy the book.

 

Quiet by Susan Cain Part III

Do All Cultures Have an Extrovert Ideal?

Soft Power

“In a gentle way, you can shake the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi

This section of Quiet by Susan Cain explores the different cultural outlook of the “perfect” or “ideal” boss.  Mainly looking into Asian countries ideals.

It seems that the extrovert ideal is not important at all to Asian countries.  Indulgence of sound is important to them, but it is opposite from Americans where the sound they should indulge in comes from.  Asian families would much rather instill a “listen before speaking” basis in their children.   Listening is much more important for finding information and making well rounded, well thought out decisions.

Personally, I think this is very important in the case of understanding Asian culture and people.  In fact, I think this rule is brilliant.  I do not find having grades for how much you speak in class, just to get a grade for being loud without understanding anything, is a good thing.  I think it is lazy teaching and shows that culture in America prizes loud and noisy people over well thought out and well aimed articulate people.  China and Japan prizes the quiet and well spoken people.  They are number one in industry for a reason, and I think this is a beautiful way of thinking because it prizes respect and thought over being spoken over and not thinking about things.  Obviously America prizes loud noisy people, our cabinet is full of them.  Our president is a perfect way to show this.  He is loud and intimidating, but as shown what has he to show he thinks?  Not much but his words.  His tweets sure don’t.

Back to the subject, the book gives examples of how surprised immigrants from Asian countries were to sit in an American classroom for the first time.  Susan Cain met and interviewed Hung Wei Chien, a mother in Cupertino, California who moved from Taiwan to the U.S. in 1979.

“I remember bring amazed.  It was linguistics class, and that’s not even linguistics the students are talking about!  I thought, ‘oh, in the U.S., as soon as you start talking, you’re fine.”   while as she reminisced about her time as a child growing up and attending school back in Taiwan, she commented “The teaching back home is very different from here.  There, you learn the subject, and they test you.  At least when I grew up, they don’t go off subject a lot, and they don’t allow the students to ramble.  If you stand up and talk nonsense, you’ll be reprimanded.”

This section of Quiet followed the differences in what the U.S. prided its students off of verses what Asian countries prided themselves off of.  It explains the importances they set on the basis of their counties and contributes to societal affairs and the economy of the country as a whole.

My take on this section of the book is that the United States puts too much importance on just talking instead of also talking to listen as well.  I believe there needs to be a balance between the two.  These are both incredible aspects to pride off of, but if there is not one to listen what is the point of talking and if there is no one to talk what is the point of listening?

The Braindead Megaphone

“Is human nature such that, under certain conditions, stupidity can come to dominate, infecting the brighter quadrants, dragging everybody down with it?”(Saunders 7)

If you are interested in reading a good collection of essays, I have just the selection for you.

For my blog this week, I decided to do somewhat of an excerpt from a larger work. I’ve selected to review the first “chapter” of essays within the book written by George Saunders, which is a collection of essays. The book is entitled, The Braindead Megaphone and the layout of it itself is quite interesting. The essay themselves are separated as somewhat chapters; however, some of the essays have subtopics. The chapter my blog focuses mainly on is the first one, “The Braindead Megaphone”. The chapter is broken into individual subtext that are divided in numeric order from one to nine. The subtext itself is somewhat confusing when you first begin because at first glance, it doesn’t seem as though they correlate to each other than the fact that they are works based on hypotheticals and internal thoughts.

My two favorites would have to be number two and number six. They both link to each other, and the philosophy of the “Megaphone Man” is truly something brilliant. It is very difficult to explain the clever analysis of the situation within the writing without going in-depth and explaining the entire essay.

This first collection, in particular, does not necessarily lay out a full start to finish storyline; however, each does deliver a message that may or may not tie into another subtext within the essays. The works are written in what I can only explain as a thought process form. To elaborate on that, a few of them drift between thoughts, some follow a distinct line of ideas that drive the work to a specific conclusion, and in others, Saunders lays out information and plainly talks to the readers about a topic that interests him.

The positives I received reading these works are that the works each have some very interesting logic to them. After each of them, they left me with something to think about as I went into the next piece, and a thought-provoking essay is always a good thing. The only negatives I can give are that this book judging from the first chapter that it is not a collection of essays for the feeble-minded and that the layout of the book, taking the numbering and divided sections into consideration, can be somewhat confusing for the reader. However, I do not believe that a book being for an intellectual audience is negative. I am simply stating that the book follows a very complex and creative mind that dissects the boundaries of social living and an individuals purpose in life.

Although this review is only for the first “chapter” of essays, I do not doubt that the writing will be phenomenal. George Saunders has a very distinct voice within his writing that pulls you into a view of the world from an overview. In conclusion, the writing is most definitely worth a read.

A Great Story You Should Read

After reading “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin and writing a blog about it, I began looking more into the works of the author. I recently discovered another short story title “Regret” written by Kate Chopin, first published in a short story collection A Night in Acadia. This story is one of the most satisfying piece I’ve ever read.

“Regret” is a story of pure, ironic human nature. Humans often tell themselves what they don’t wont or will never do but when those things are presented to them, their entire perspective changes… and suddenly, you realize it’s exactly what you want. So, shortly, I would say the theme of this short story is chiefly realization.

The story begins introducing the main character, Mamzelle Aurlie (which I have no idea how to pronounce). This 50-year-old woman is introduced as an overall strong, sturdy woman who knows exactly what she does not want. “So, she was quite alone in the world, except for her dog Ponto, and the negroes who lived in her cabins and worked her crops, and the fowls, a few cows, a couple of mules, her gun (with which she shot chicken-hawks), and her religion.” Chopin created a visual, emotional, and literal description of Mamzelle in just one sentence, which is very impressive.

The story then transitions to a morning where Mamzelle is observing her new neighbors. Chopin uses the description to reveal how the main character feels about the family. Chopin uses the show don’t tell method very well, almost like it’s just second nature. I appreciate the functions of all the descriptions. None of them feel redundant or out of place. There’s just enough throughout the entire story. On this morning, Mamzelle is presented exactly what she didn’t want. This abrupt introduction changed her routine and at the end, her emotions.

Mamzelle realizes that she’s been missing out on something very special. Her entire life she believed this aspect didn’t belong in her life story, but she was wrong. The title acts as the last emotional element in the story. The main character doesn’t frankly say or describe how she feels, but the ending created a sort of somber. When you look back at the title, you know exactly what Mamzelle Aurlie is feeling while she sat at the table—regret. The ending stirred an emotion inside of me. I almost felt sorry for the main character. I believe that’s exactly what Chopin wanted her readers to feel.

Some interesting things I want to point out is the way Kate Chopin shows her character through her fictional character. Chopin was pro Confederate and obviously racist. Mamzelle describes the slaves working and living across the cotton field. The words negroes and mulatto are used, which was striking to the eye but not so much distracting. I feel I have a very complicated, interested relationship with this author. I know how she felt about my kind, but I can’t help but to appreciate the dynamics of her stories.

Overall, this was a great story. If you want to know what the ‘introduction’ was, click here to give the story a read. It’s very short!

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

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Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is a speculative fiction piece taking place in a dystopian world. After the government has been usurped, the main character, known by her fake name of “Offred”, lives in the reformed country of Gilead. Gilead is based on strict but warped Christian fundamentals. Men and women are assigned roles in society—men having roles in government or security, women the roles of housekeeping and simple wives. Offred is a Handmaid. Her job is to go from household to household and become pregnant with the household’s Commander’s child, give it to the Wife, and move to the next house. If she does not succeed in pregnancy within three households, she will be shipped off to the “Colonies.” Throughout the story, Offred looks back on her past life, laments her lack of independency, and wonders if an uprising is on the way.

The story is told by jumps between the present day and the past. The restrictive, “women-aren’t-allowed-to-raise-their-voices” world is juxtaposed to our modern day world. Though the difference is great, the novel rarely goes overboard with it. The few times that Offred laments her restrictive life are used to effect, as opposed to coming up every other sentence. The overall world and how it works are also told in a simple “this is how it is” fashion. The book, after all, doesn’t need to inform the reader that what is happening is not okay—the reader knows that—so Offred doesn’t need to bring it up all the time.

The fact that Offred rarely shows how she feels makes the moments of her falling apart all the more effective. Atwood describes the environments with just enough detail to leave the exact image up to the reader, and because of this, leaves things simple enough to understand. Handmaids wear red, Marthas wear green, Guardians wear black, etc., etc. The reader also isn’t told every single practice of Gilead, but the ones they are told are enough to fill in the blanks. This is a tricky thing with dystopian novels like this and The Hunger Games and Divergent—getting across just how bad the government is without spending half the book on exposition. THT does this very well.

The more we find out about Gilead and the rest of the world, the more things click into place, as opposed to it all coming at once. The last few chapters also cement how things are not always one-hundred percent cemented, either. Not everyone is going to listen to the “system.” And not in the straightforward, uprising rebellion way, just twists in the system way. The fact that the world is speculative also lends to its effect. Nothing about Gilead is too technological or fantastical, and is intentionally realistic enough in function and design. While it’s also clear that the rest of the world is not exactly like this, the book wisely leaves out how other countries react to Gilead, as any explanation would probably be unrealistic.

Characters in this book are tricky. The only ones with straightforward personalities are Moira, Offred’s best friend; the Commander of Offred’s household; and Serena Joy, the Wife to the Commander. Moira is almost like the character who’s supposed to be the protagonist—she’s not vocally rebelling against the system, but she’s sneaky about it, and unlike Offred, retains her personality after the change. The Commander is intentionally mysterious and hard to figure out. Serena Joy is almost the same, as it’s unclear exactly what her motivations are. These characters are primarily what sets the plot forward.

Offred herself is hard to place. It could be argued that she’s simply a shadow of her former self, and that years of abuse and despair have worn her too far down to recover. Her acceptance but bitterness of the system, for example, and having more curiosity than hope in regards to change. This is reasonable, as like I’ve said, she does have her moments where she crumbles a bit. Her reactions to change are not hope or joy, but rather caution in case she gets in trouble.

Because of this, when she thinks back on her former child and husband, it can be a bit hard to take seriously. She doesn’t fear for them, rarely expresses hope that they’re alive, and seems to just accept that they’re gone and she’ll never see them again. The memories she has of her child are tender, but regarding her ex-husband, she talks about him as if he never really mattered. It can be confusing and conflicting at times. This problem is especially tedious towards the end. Offred is put into several very emotional situations that she doesn’t react very emotionally to.

The book can be slow at times, because progressions of the plot are coupled with the unspoken thoughts and feelings from Offred. Understandable, considering this is first-person, but rather than the two being interlaced with each other, one chapter can be wholly plot, and the other wholly thoughts. It’s hard not to skim through some bits (sorry if this is literary-sacrilegious.)

The book, without giving away anything, has a semi-happy, semi-ambiguous ending that ties everything nicely together. There’s no grand battle with explosions or anything, but it does end on as pragmatic of a good ending as possible. I didn’t feel like time had been wasted, and its open interpretation gives a lot to think of.

So, in conclusion, THT can be slow and tedious at times, but it still offers some thoughtful insight and capturing worldbuilding.

The Perks of being a wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

This book was about a boy who went through a series of mental illness and didn’t feel like he fit in at any point. He also felt disassociated from the people around him, and he sees things differently than everyone else. We also see how some people around treat him differently than he sees himself. His friends considered him a “wallflower” and he thought after being so close to his friends that being a wallflower wasn’t all that bad. He however, fell in love with one of his friends and due to never believing in being outgoing, he never took action in loving that girl. He instead wrote a series of letters to no person in particular but rather to some person who would understand where he was coming from. We see that he really just wanted someone to understand him when he really didn’t even understand himself.

This book was written in a series of letters. At first the way it was written tripped me up because I never really get into stories that are written in letter format because I always felt that the letters took away from the real meaning of the story. However, this story never really lost my attention. It was formatted well in a way that didn’t lose me and each entry of the letters lead into the next entry well. We also got to get a lot more from the boy himself with it structured in the form of letters because his mind is directly reflected through the words. I felt the deconstruction of his mind and the way he started realizing what was really wrong with him. I see that before the end of the book he really didn’t understand what was wrong with him and he found it weird when his psychiatrist always asked him about his past, but later on he realized the full extent to why his past was so important.  It didn’t really feel like a “Dear Diary” thing but rather a reflection on events that made him realize how disassociated from the world around him.

By the end of this book I was feeling so emotionally connected to the book that I really didn’t want it to end. I think that the idea of the book set on teenagers and a boy feeling the way he did about the people around him and himself made it so relateable. There is a lot of mental illness happening and different reasons as to why those mental diseases are caused. I love the idea behind this story and I believe that everyone should read this at some point in their lives. There is so much meaning behind the words that are written and it honestly changed the way i thought about mental illness and disassociation in general. The ending had me awestruck and wondering who those letters were written to and what they were meant to capture. I think that by the end of the book he reveals the reason he is the way he is but only in a way that he finally realizes it himself.

Looking for Alaska

Looking for Alaska is a wonderful book by John Green. In this book, the characters are in a prestigious boarding school. The main characters are Miles “Pudge” Halter, Chip “The Colonel” Martin, Takumi Hikohito, Alaska Young, and Lara Buterskaya. The book is about these teenagers trying to understand life. The main character, Miles, tries to find out who he is and tries to experience new things in his life. When Alaska goes missing, he begins to try to understand what happened to her and misses her. When she goes missing, he thinks back to the fond memories that he has of her.

The story is told in a brilliant way. It manages to pull the reader along to whatever is going on in the story.  John Green does a good job at making ever character very relatable in some way, he wants to constantly make us emotionally invested with every character in the story. Even though the story is about the protagonist trying to get over his feelings for Alaska and us experiencing his incredible bond with her, it’s also a wonderful story about people learning new things constantly in their teenage years. Miles is an inexperienced nerdy kind of guy, and he is introduced to Chip who is a really cool person, almost the exactly the opposite of Miles. Miles goes through a journey of exploration of smoking, drinking, and other things with Chip who is also, in a way, trying to find out who he really is as well.

I believe that this book is very symbolic. Cigarettes are used as a symbol in this story. It is used as a sign of rebellion, but also it symbolizes time running out. One very popular quote from Alaska is, “Y’all smoke to enjoy it, I smoke to die.” I believe that cigarettes are used as a way to symbolize death and time running out. Alaska goes missing and it ultimately shows other people that time is very scarce. I think the book is a good way to show people that time matters in our life and we shouldn’t throw it away.  Instead of spending all of our time trying to understand life, it symbolizes that we should spend our life trying new things and not being scared. That we should always jump into everything head first because life is too short and valuable. The book represents a giant  example that we can literally die at any time.

Life is too short to dwell on mistakes we made in the past and worry about everything that will happen in the future. The book shows that we should not worry about the future, especially since we are young, because we could also die at any time. Time is valuable, but also the time for us to die does not have any limits to how old we are. I think that John Green made this book to get people out of their comfort zones and to just dive in all the way into life and not regret things that we do.

Pure-D Satisfaction

“— I done it for my own pure-D satisfaction.” (Welty 216)

The short story, “Where is the Voice Coming From?”, by the great Eudora Welty is by far a must read. It is personally my favorite story from Mrs. Eudora Welty. It is brutally honest in its writing from the mind of a white supremacist within the 1960’s. The story was written following the assassination of Medgar Evers, and is to have been written based on his assassination. For this review, I went back for a second time reading this story looking for understanding within the mindset of the narrator. Through my first read, I only found anger. I believe my first read did not give the work itself enough justice. I read the story and could not get past the language to find the beauty in the message. In this read, I searched for an understanding. By stating understanding I do not by any means refer to compassion for the narrator; my meaning is finding a comprehension as to what leads the man to take action. In this read, I found great detailing in his thought process, his own personal character flaws, as well as the character development throughout the story which I found a great interest in. The story as so many symbolic aspects to it, and I encourage others to challenge themselves to dig deep into the story and find the dark thoughts of what I can only label as a jealous and unrighteous man.

A disclaimer to potential readers that I can give, is that Eudora Welty does not under any means restrain language from this piece of work. It has a few demeaning words, as well as racial slurs, and it does a very adequate job of portraying the narrator. Some readers may become very uncomfortable reading the work; however, if you can look past the language and find the root purpose of the writing then you will definitely find the boldness in the writer herself.

The timing for when Eudora Welty released this work, in my opinion, only adds to the power of the piece itself. Within the era of civil rights, the African Americans were making a difference in the community. Not to mention that Ms. Eudora Welty was a Caucasian woman writing a work that slandered a white supremacist man, which were few men she grew up around. She gave a look through the eyes of a man that many people feared and fought against. For me, this work following a powerful leader’s death made the piece phenomenal.I encourage others if possible to visit Medgar Evers home where he was assassinated after reading this work. The setting that Ms. Eudora Welty describes is not the same as it was many years ago; however, the similarities to today’s view and the past is bone chilling. For me, the location mixed with the story gave me goosebumps.

I encourage others if possible to visit Medgar Evers home where he was assassinated after reading this work. The setting that Ms. Eudora Welty describes is not the same as it was many years ago; however, the similarities to today’s view and the past is bone chilling. For me, the location mixed with the story gave me goosebumps. Overall, the story is a great work of artistry, written by a well-respected writer that is worth a read.