Sunday, February 17, 2013

Critique of Yvonne’s “Evidence”



“Evidence” is a collection of virtual correspondences through a missed connection on Craigslist, emails, and text messages.  Until the final page, the reader is lead to believe that this Will Peters is cheating on his fiancé, Margaret, with Kat, who he met at a Mexican restaurant.  After reaching out to Kat with a Craigslist missed connection, Will covers up the affair by communicating with his mistress through email.  Supposedly Darlene, Margaret’s sister, served Kat at a coffee shop and accessed her email account after discussing a love interest that sounded very similar to Margaret’s fiancé.  The final page offers a drastic shift when it is revealed that sixteen year Darlene went through the trouble of fabricating the entire scenario so that her sister would not leave for NYC. 

 You experiment, almost obsessively, with text and the various lingos associated with virtual communication.  The story accurately mimics the format of Craigslist ads, emails, and text messages viewed on an iPhone.  It is so convincing that one could suspect that you cut and pasted the text from online sources.  The effort that you put into the composition is impressive.  I’m just a little skeptical that a 16 year old would commit so much time to creating fake email accounts and conversations to keep her sister at home before just talking to her.  Still, the story is very well crafted.

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