comments on “curse the darkness”

My friend Cyndi and I were chatting online while she was reading Curse the Darkness, Chapter 9 of U-town, and she had some interesting comments, as usual.

She noticed that this was the first time I mentioned T.C.’s full name, which gave me a chance to point out the reference to Ulysses (“Stately, plump Theresa Carbonieri…”). We also discussed T.C.’s cooking, which is good as long as you don’t mind that she smokes while she cooks.

We spoke about Vicki, who is still upset that her mother sent her away to live with the Wasserman family. We talked about this in relation to a story Cyndi is working on, where a single mother could have made a similar decision, under somewhat different circumstances, but didn’t. And, it’s the sort of decision where, even if you figure out later that it was a mistake, you can’t just change your mind. As I said, parents usually try to do what they think is the right thing, but sometimes they’re wrong.

Cyndi commented on Marshall’s reverie about spending the rest of his life with Jan Sleet. As I said, “He signed on for a job, and it’s turned out to be a lot more than that. And it basically suits him, but he worries sometimes about how complete a commitment it is, and how much he has turned over control of his life.”

She optimistically thought during the hospital scene with Henshaw and Drenkenson that they might end up as friends again. I pointed out that they never were friends, just members of the same band.

She asked if Paris was homeless, since he seems very well versed in the homeless life. I said that it’s not definitely set (we never see Paris at home, and he never refers to the question), but that in U-town a lot of people are squatters, living in buildings without heat, that sort of thing, including Pete and Carl, though they’re fairly comfortable. They’re both musicians, after all, so their standards are not high.

(more to come)

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