May 28 - "Twice"

“Twice”
by Deb Olin Unferth
Minor Robberies (2007)

* * (Okay) Realistic

Everything, from her marriage dissolving to returning movies to bouncing checks, was happening twice. It was the single events that gave her pause, caused her to question the future.

The idea behind the story failed to capture my interest. It’s a clever idea – events happening in pairs – and allows for some sentence play – repetition and balance – but in the end, the cleverness wears thin and the play becomes overly showy and distracting. It is a nice experiment that simply fizzled out quickly.