SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
[READ: December 3, 2021] “A Lovely and Terrible Thing”
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my seventh time reading the Calendar. The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.
As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.
You know this story is going to be unusual because the main character works for Ripley’s Believe It or Not (I didn’t know they had that in Australia).
He is off to investigate a claim when his car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. After a few hours of fruitless struggle, a local man approaches. They decide that the place the driver is going is too far to walk so the local (named Angola) offers to let him spend the night at his place.
When the narrator reveals that he works for Ripley’s, Angola says that his daughter does something pretty unusual–may he ought to take a look.
The rest of the story if in Angola’s house, with the narrator surreptitiously scrutinizing the daughter to see what’s so unusual about her. That’s when Angola’s wife catches on and gets mad that Angola said something to this stranger.
Finally, they take him out to see their other daughter–who is sleeping in the barn. How will he react to what he sees?
This story was offbeat and more than a little sad.
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