In spring 2003, the literary magazine
Five Fingers Review published my short story, "Martin's Pond," in the lit mag's issue #20. It was a themed issue, titled
Gardens in the Urban Jungle. You can still find back issues of FFR in some public libraries --
San Francisco and
New York, among the few I'm aware of; and if you
dig through Amazon you can find a scatter of copies available for sale. For the most part, though, "Martin's Pond" went out of print and became unavailable after its short sojourn on the lit mag shelves of brick-and-mortar bookstores.
I list "Martin's Pond" among
publishing credits on my website, but for a long while it hasn't seemed right that interested visitors had no easy way to find and read out of print work included there.
Problem solved:
As of late last week,
"Martin's Pond" is available on the e-book publishing platform Smashwords. It's free, and you can read it on a Kindle, an iPad, a Nook, a Sony Reader, a Kobo eReader, or on your Windows or Macintosh computer. You can open it in a web browser, or obtain and print a PDF.
And so on ...
Smashwords makes it very easy: an author supplies a single file and the platform's software does the rest. Writers:
check it out.
My short story -- 4400 words, about 10-1/2 printed pages as it appeared in
Five Fingers Review -- describes a young man, Martin, who likes to spend time by himself at a remote pond near a small city in Northern California. Martin isn't the sharpest knife in the block; he works as a restaurant dishwasher; and his family is less than fully intact. Martin's solitude beside 'his' pond is a refuge. He's therefore pretty unhappy when he discovers that -- after six years of having the place to himself -- a stranger has begun to swim there. When she doesn't go away on her own Martin devises one plan after another to encourage her to move along. One plan after another fails. They aren't the best laid plans. Eventually ... well, you'll see when you read the story.
I invite you to download
a free copy of "Martin's Pond" for yourself. When you do, I strongly encourage you to sign up for a (free) account on
Smashwords so you can leave a review that will help other visitors decide whether to read it themselves. Alternately, I hope you'll leave a comment here on
One Finger Typing.
Enjoy!
Posts
I love the story.
ReplyDeleteThis is a suffocating story, as it suppose to be. The main character, Martin, a social misfit, in a moment of miscalculation, made a terrible mistake - a situation we all have had in our lives, if not as drastic and irreversible. This short story, contained surprisingly much background information, left a harrowing feeling for me, particularly after the haunting last paragraph.
The prose by Masover was hard and driven, with momentary respite, powerfully flinty, some less than truly satisfying depiction of minor characters aside.
Loved it. Looking forward to your novel.
ReplyDeleteI liked the story. I think your's succeeds because the introduction (as well as the development) of the character remains simple -- your word choice and phrasing reminded me right away of E. Annie Proulx. I think the style was erudite and seemed in contrast to Martin. In fact the language made Martin the character even more simple and undeveloped as compared to the setting...
ReplyDeleteMartin's actions with the unknown woman and his final thoughts with the police are, perhaps juvenile on a literal basis, yet symbolically this undeveloped character allows the reader to place himself into the story -- as the story represents things that we all feel -- protecting that one spot, that safety spot, that we all need to have.
The description of the deed is almost like Poe yet omitting descriptions of overt fear doesn't take it as far as a Tell-Tale Heart. Again, it is about the character and the reader seeing themselves in the character -- not about generating fear (necessarily) in the reader
Visiting you blog via Dare I Read and Jim Murdock (I sometimes let myself just wander through blogland) and found your story. Wonderful story, contains everything you need to know to understand Martin. Liked the way you kept using his name rather than saying 'he'. Half an hour of my sunday morning well spent, thank you.
ReplyDeleteI liked the story a lot. I was pulled in by the nature description and felt akin to Martin as I hike each day in mostly vacated unused land. I know how it must feel to have a betrayal of what he thought was his. Since Martin is so child-like at 28, his actions are those of a child. I really enjoyed this short story. I read it on my ride on my work's shuttle bus.
ReplyDelete