Author Topic: Pseudopod 380: Abigail  (Read 9731 times)

Bdoomed

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on: April 06, 2014, 01:41:01 AM
Pseudopod 380: Abigail

by Hunter Gray.

“Abigail” has been performed at various readings in northern New Jersey and New York but is published now here.

Hunter Gray is a poet/short-storyist living in northern New Jersey where she teaches literature and creative writing. She is a graduate of Seton Hall University with a degree in English Literature and her publication credits include Chavez magazine. She is currently working on a collection of short stories and has recently completed her first book of poems, AMERICAN GROTESQUE.

Your reader – Alethea Kontis – is the co-author of Sherrilyn Kenyon’s DARK-HUNTER COMPANION, and penned the ALPHAOOPS series of picture books. Her short fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in a myriad of anthologies and magazines. She has done multiple collaborations with Eisner winning artist J.K. Lee, including THE WONDERLAND ALPHABET and DIARY OF A MAD SCIENTIST GARDEN GNOME. Her YA fairy tale novel, ENCHANTED, won the Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award in 2012, was nominated for the Audie Award in 2013, and was selected for World Book Night in 2014. Both ENCHANTED and its sequel, HERO, were nominated for the Andre Norton Award. Born in Burlington, Vermont, Alethea makes the best baklava you’ve ever tasted and sleeps with a teddy bear named Charlie. You can find Princess Alethea online at aletheakontis.com. If you’re a fan of Grimm and Andersen, be sure to watch Princess Alethea’s Fairy Tale Rants – there is a new episode on Alethea’s YouTube channel every Monday.



“The sun was dipping now, and I feared for myself. My hands grew cold, like ice. And then, I felt the popcorn pop in my belly. The jelly-baby was kicking. My jelly-baby was awake and real and moving. And then I feared for her too.

The pin-prickle of fear brushed itself against the small of my back even more when I saw what lay in the street ahead of me. A perfect mountain of frosting…a cake delicately decorated in pink icing. Maraschino cherries floated around the edges and crystal sugar sprinkles peppered the top. It was beautiful, but terrifying. Why was this in the middle of the road? Who left such a thing? Instinctually, I looked around me. And behind me. For the first time, in a long time, I felt like the prey, not the predator.

But there was no one, nothing. No cars or birds or tiny children or good Samaritans trying to feed some hungry knocked-up college kid.

And then, I saw it. The most beautiful house I had ever seen.”





Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


littlepossum

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Reply #1 on: April 06, 2014, 08:36:28 AM
The Hansel and Gretel villain was clear enough but was it also an abortion metaphor? It kind of made me feel uncomfortable.



Sgarre1

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Reply #2 on: April 06, 2014, 03:24:56 PM
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It kind of made me feel uncomfortable.

That's what we're here for!



Listener

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Reply #3 on: April 07, 2014, 12:39:38 PM
This felt more like an exploration of how a person immersed in party culture can screw up her life something fierce, and then there was some genre tacked on the end. I read the first part better when it was Ecstasy Club by Douglas Rushkoff. That said, I thought this story was well-told and well-narrated. It won't be one of my favorites of 2014 but I enjoyed listening to it.

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Iamthelaw1979

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Reply #4 on: April 07, 2014, 02:04:06 PM
This story definitely made me feel uncomfortable, which is why I listen in the first place. I thought the larger theme here was addiction--and the requisite selfishness inherent in that disease--as opposed to abortion. Obviously the main character was an alcoholic, and had suffered many consequences for it, but refused to come to the realization that she was sick. In the end, she sacrifices a child to her disease, and then the obsession with the chid becomes part of her disease. Her desire for a child is perverted, though, because it comes from a place of ultimate selfishness, not from any sense of love. She wants a child to make herself feel whole, and will destroy that child again to achieve that elusive feeling. The tragedy is that she continues to obsess over outside things--liquor, sex, and now children--instead of becoming introspective and learning how to make herself whole without destroying others. Her life will now be a continuing metaphor of the cycle of addiction that passes from the addict to her children. As the older witch said, even if she lets the child survive, she will turn it into a creature like herself. A broken thing, never whole, always consuming others, and insatiable.



The Far Stairs

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Reply #5 on: April 07, 2014, 09:59:08 PM
Great analysis! But... where the hell did the part with the brother fit in??!

Am I hallucinating, or was there a part in the middle of the story where she casually mentions that her brother fell into a boat propeller and she tried to put his remains back together with her hands? Then her mother says, "Oh, that was kind of your fault."

Her and her mother's reaction to the brother getting chopped to pieces seemed rather cavalier. The narrator quickly goes back to complaining about being bored and boys and someone used the phrase "Holy hangover, Batman."

That scene with the brother was so incongruous that even as I type this, I really think I may have imagined it.

As near as I can figure, either the part with the brother getting chopped up was real, and the rest of the story didn't make any sense

or

the rest of the story was real, and the part with the brother getting chopped up didn't make any sense.

I guess there's a third option, which is that the rest of the story is just her hallucinating in a mental hospital because HER BROTHER GOT CHOPPED TO PIECES BY A PROPELLER IN FRONT OF HER.

(This story didn't work for me.)

Maybe I'm missing a deeper significance to the brother's death? Can anyone help?

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Iamthelaw1979

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Reply #6 on: April 08, 2014, 12:29:13 PM
Maybe I'm missing a deeper significance to the brother's death? Can anyone help?
[/quote]

I took her brother's death as another example of her inability to escape her own selfishness. She took her brother drinking with her, and there was an accident as a result. I thought it fit the theme; she really does harm the people to whom she is closest.



bounceswoosh

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Reply #7 on: April 08, 2014, 02:34:05 PM
The deeper significance is that she cared about her brother, and he cared about her.

Most of these responses make the protag out to be a monster, which yeah. But does no one else feel compassion for her? She is an addict. Her mother may not have provided the best in love and support. She's trying to fill a void that can never be filled. She destroys everything she loves. I feel sad for her.



Iamthelaw1979

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Reply #8 on: April 08, 2014, 05:42:04 PM
I think that she can be both monstrous and sympathetic. The implication of the story is that the "witch" was once just like the protagonist. I think it is beyond doubt that the witch is monstrous, and it is further implied that the protagonist will become just like the witch. I think there's an allusion in the story to the fact that many villains are sympathetic, at some point. For that matter, most addicts are sympathetic, and aren't necessarily villains. I think the protagonist crosses a threshold into villainy when she succumbs to her most base selfishness. She makes a choice for a life of villainy. Perhaps there is some kind of abortion moral tale going on here for that matter, but I hold that the abortion isn't the point of the villainy. The villainy comes from her choosing to keep the baby, and THEN choosing to destroy it. She kills the baby after she's named it. That is when she has truly stepped over a line.



davidthygod

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Reply #9 on: April 13, 2014, 04:04:18 PM
This girl reminds me of several people I know. I generally agree with bounceswoosh that we should give her a bit of a break and try to understand the background and why she is so self-destructive.  Selfishness is extremely common and we are all guilty, though this girl is a little more depraved and self absorbed than most.  Honestly, I loved the fact that the main character was irredeemable in so many ways, yet I still had sympathy for her.  I thought she was very well written.

I also agree with Iamthelaw1979 on the abortion moral tale that is happening here.  I had a recurring feeling after finishing the story, that the author was in many ways trying to be allegorical.  I have some specific thoughts on what and how this exact statement is being made, but I don't want to drag this thread down that road.

I do appreciate a good twisted story and this easily met the bill, so all in all, this one was well worth my time.

The man is clear in his mind, but his soul is mad.


The Far Stairs

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Reply #10 on: April 13, 2014, 05:34:01 PM
The deeper significance is that she cared about her brother, and he cared about her.

Most of these responses make the protag out to be a monster, which yeah. But does no one else feel compassion for her? She is an addict. Her mother may not have provided the best in love and support. She's trying to fill a void that can never be filled. She destroys everything she loves. I feel sad for her.

I definitely feel compassion for addicts. I've had my share of family experiences, and addiction is truly a sickness that makes someone into a person they don't want to be.

That said, I felt no compassion for the protagonist. Maybe it was the tone of the narration that made her sound like a whiny teenager? She didn't seem to care much about her brother. She mentioned his gruesome, horrific, traumatizing death once, then pretty much glossed over it for the rest of the story.

I disagree that she was well-written UNLESS my theory that she was narrating all this from an insane asylum is correct. In that (quite possible) case, the story takes on a very different tone.

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Reply #11 on: April 14, 2014, 01:21:05 PM
Not a fan.  I had trouble feeling any sympathy for her.  I don't know if it was the offhand tone of much of the narration, and how she did terrible things in such a casual way "Oh, look, a pregnancy craving for vodka, I should give in." etc.  It's fitting that she'd give up her baby to possibly be fried up and eaten, because that seemed pretty much on par with everything that came before.

I felt like I should've had some sympathy for her, especially with the way her mother treated her after her brother's accident, but in this case at least I just didn't.  

And when the story was over it made me want to bleach the memory of it out of my brain.  But not in a good way.  So it obviously had an emotional effect, but not one that I'm really pining for in my story-listening.  It kind of like watching Dateline.




davidthygod

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Reply #12 on: April 14, 2014, 04:03:36 PM
Not a fan.  I had trouble feeling any sympathy for her.  I don't know if it was the offhand tone of much of the narration, and how she did terrible things in such a casual way "Oh, look, a pregnancy craving for vodka, I should give in." etc.  It's fitting that she'd give up her baby to possibly be fried up and eaten, because that seemed pretty much on par with everything that came before.

I really think this is the single reason (or at least the key reason) that I like this story, she is a terrible, awful, horrible person, and for me there just aren't enough of those characters filling the role of main character in my horror stories.

In fact, I think the author should have taken it one step further.  To play up the allegory, the story should have ended with her getting a job at an abortion clinic, so she could have a ready made source of sweet sweet fetus to fill that void.
« Last Edit: April 15, 2014, 04:51:42 AM by davidthygod »

The man is clear in his mind, but his soul is mad.


TrishEM

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Reply #13 on: April 15, 2014, 09:40:28 AM
I stopped listening when she ate the dirty, buggy lollipop -- never got to the horror part at all, too grossed out. But that's about personal taste (so to speak), not any indication about the writing. I can take eldritch horror, but not the awful gritty tales of what some people really do to themselves... It's interesting to see from the comments where the story went, though. Better luck (for me) next week!



Moon_Goddess

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Reply #14 on: April 15, 2014, 03:51:31 PM
I stopped listening when she ate the dirty, buggy lollipop -- never got to the horror part at all, too grossed out. But that's about personal taste (so to speak), not any indication about the writing. I can take eldritch horror, but not the awful gritty tales of what some people really do to themselves... It's interesting to see from the comments where the story went, though. Better luck (for me) next week!

Have to admit... That one almost got me.   I was standing in line at Subway getting my food when that part played, had to turn it off and try again later.

Was dream6601 but that's sounds awkward when Nathan reads my posts.


albionmoonlight

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Reply #15 on: April 15, 2014, 05:41:51 PM
The bug lollypop was my favorite part.  It worked as just a total gross image in its own right.  Then, of course, as a metaphor for the Hansel and Gretel witch that we are about to meet.



zoanon

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Reply #16 on: May 01, 2014, 11:29:55 PM
did not finish.
stopped listening around the lollypop or brother incident, whatever came last.
sometimes I just don't want to listen to fucked up people talk about how fucked up they are. got enough in real life, and it just seemed to go on forever.



empathy44

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Reply #17 on: May 12, 2014, 02:53:45 PM
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sometimes I just don't want to listen to fucked up people talk about how fucked up they are. got enough in real life, and it just seemed to go on forever.

Hmmm, made me think. I have the same response. I wonder if I used to worship the emo and now have no patience; or I just don't find it scary. I've had nightmares where I'd committed some act that was going to ruin my life and that was the central horror. I'd done something I couldn't undo and was going to lose every possible happy future. Maybe what's missing for me is the sense of sudden cost or awareness of cost. It's a slow slide into slime instead of a plunge.



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Reply #18 on: May 22, 2014, 03:35:43 PM
Holy fuck this was great. Abigail was definitely mentally damaged, but the true cause is obfuscated making the narrator delightfully unreliable. There's definitely some suppression and avoidance and blame shifting and inability to concentrate. And maybe a gingerbread house witch. The narrator did a phenomenal investment and really brought the character to life.

I think some the scholarly assessment here is missing that the risk assessment portions of the brain don't fully develop until around 25. There's a reason that 25 is one of the paperwork age breaks (auto rental autonomy, insurance premiums, etc.) People do dumb shit all the time, and moreso when they are younger. Complicate this with wonky brain chemistry and you've got a recipe for disaster (or tasty fried baby).

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”


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Reply #19 on: May 23, 2014, 12:48:03 PM
I think some the scholarly assessment here is missing that the risk assessment portions of the brain don't fully develop until around 25. There's a reason that 25 is one of the paperwork age breaks (auto rental autonomy, insurance premiums, etc.) People do dumb shit all the time, and moreso when they are younger. Complicate this with wonky brain chemistry and you've got a recipe for disaster (or tasty fried baby).

That varies a lot by person to person, I think.  I was pretty risk averse even then.



Fenrix

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Reply #20 on: May 23, 2014, 02:05:31 PM

I think some the scholarly assessment here is missing that the risk assessment portions of the brain don't fully develop until around 25. There's a reason that 25 is one of the paperwork age breaks (auto rental autonomy, insurance premiums, etc.) People do dumb shit all the time, and moreso when they are younger. Complicate this with wonky brain chemistry and you've got a recipe for disaster (or tasty fried baby).

That varies a lot by person to person, I think.  I was pretty risk averse even then.


Are you as risk averse then as you are now, or were you just more risk averse than the general population? If you were one end of the population bell curve I don't think it's unreasonable to place Abigail the same distance away on the other side of the bubble. With regards to conclusions about brain development, my engineering perspective requires me to take the conclusions of peer-reviewed scholarly articles over anecdotal evidence. (I know there are more articles out there, and I bet the insurance industry has tomes, but I just linked the first good article that Google produced.) There's probably portions of the population that get to the finish line a few years earlier, but I don't want to pay for articles to see that standard deviation. Too busy readng Nancy Kress and Roger Zelazny to dig that deep.  :)

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”


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Reply #21 on: May 29, 2014, 01:50:47 PM

I think some the scholarly assessment here is missing that the risk assessment portions of the brain don't fully develop until around 25. There's a reason that 25 is one of the paperwork age breaks (auto rental autonomy, insurance premiums, etc.) People do dumb shit all the time, and moreso when they are younger. Complicate this with wonky brain chemistry and you've got a recipe for disaster (or tasty fried baby).

That varies a lot by person to person, I think.  I was pretty risk averse even then.


Are you as risk averse then as you are now, or were you just more risk averse than the general population? If you were one end of the population bell curve I don't think it's unreasonable to place Abigail the same distance away on the other side of the bubble. With regards to conclusions about brain development, my engineering perspective requires me to take the conclusions of peer-reviewed scholarly articles over anecdotal evidence. (I know there are more articles out there, and I bet the insurance industry has tomes, but I just linked the first good article that Google produced.) There's probably portions of the population that get to the finish line a few years earlier, but I don't want to pay for articles to see that standard deviation. Too busy readng Nancy Kress and Roger Zelazny to dig that deep.  :)

I was definitely more risk averse than the general population, and extremely more risk averse than my peer group of the time (of course that doesn't take much, your average college student being what they are).

I am probably more risk averse now, I guess, especially with the baby at home.  I've got his future to think about.

But there are certain areas where I may be less risk averse.  When I first moved to the Twin Cities in 2004 I was terrified of driving on freeway traffic.  Now I'm probably too comfortable with it.



UnfulredJohnson

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Reply #22 on: October 06, 2014, 02:51:02 PM
Eugh. Jeeze. Eugh.

I have wrongness spiders all over me. I love how she called it Jelly baby, and I got to hoping the baby would save her and all that. Then it just... eugh. Yuck.

I don't think anyone can interpret this as anything other than a full blown pro-life advocacy story. Which is fine. Just a little surprised to see it run here. But it was something. Really something. This one will stay with me. Consider me creeped the frac out.