Critique #63 Margery Casares
Katharine Kerr August 27th, 2006
Â
Â
A PENNY’S WORTH
1935 Wrote for Junior Lee Brown, my friend, by Lucas Matthew Turner age 8
Â
Uncle Lloyd reads in his Bible to me every night. One night he read something about children of wrath and that just sorta jumped into my head and stayed there. I guess that’s what Junior Lee and me was. Folks didn’t like Junior Lee ’cause he was black and they didn’t like me ’cause I had a bad face. When I was born one side of my face fell down. Part of my mouth could smile but the other part just seemed to be sulky and mad looking. I wasn’t hardly never mad but part of my mouth looked like I was.
The Fosters called Junior Lee Nigger and me freak and Uncle Lloyd and Aunt Nettie Nigger lovers. That didn’t bother me none cause I knew they sure wasn’t nothing special but they scared Junior Lee a lot. I loved Junior Lee and I reckon he loved me. I wished we was brothers.
Ever time I went to his house I wondered how come that old cabin didn’t fall into the river. It just clung to the bank like a loose tooth that wouldn’t come out. Two old hound dogs was always laying in the shade of a Chinaberry tree in the front yard slapping their tails in the dirt. Junior Lee said they didn’t bark they bayed.
You don’t need that subtitle, really. You’ve caught a dialect tone of voice in the actual text, rather nicely as far as I can tell, and the boy’s age comes across as well as it needs to, too. Is the year being 1935 crucial to the story? If so, try working it into the actual text. In these few lines it’s clear that the characters are living in poverty, and you can doubtless add a few details to make it clear that the Great Depression is still raging.
All in all, well done. I’d turn the page.
There are a lot of interesting story-lines here. My main thought is that the story-lines (topics) aren’t being developed to their full potential (within that particular paragraph) before you move on to the next story-line/topic.
Consider telling us more about ‘the children of wrath.’ Maybe images the POV character has of them when he hears his uncle read about about them. Giving us more about ‘the children of wrath’ will make for a stronger comparison when the POV character compares himself and his friend to them.
Also consider giving us more specifics about what scares Junior Lee in the second paragraph. The connection between this and The POV character loving his friend wasn’t clear for me. Does he feel bad for his friend?