My Life in Heavy Metal
Steve Almond
My
Life in Heavy Metal is a collection of stories that show pain throughout life. It shows the pain mainly of heart break and
death, revolving around sex. Steve
Almond has a keen ability to create images through words and create story lines
that are very plausible. Any person
could end up in. I found that Almond’s
biggest downfall was when his stories were too short and a story could not
develop.
My Life
in Heavy Metal
The collection started with a bang. The title story of the book was about a
college relationship after one of the members in the relationship moves away
and finds another person to love, then the college lover comes back. My favorite part of this story was the
ability to create an awkward feel between the characters and almost make it
feel as though time is slowing.
I also enjoyed his use of
dialogue. His ability to create the
awkward feel helps in dialogue that displays a relationship that is falling
apart. He also just mimics the dialogue
of life well. Like when Jo was drunk and
freaking out.
Valentino
This was my favorite stories in the
collection. The story is about a group
of small town high school kids in the summer before they go to college. In this story he uses dialogue very well
again. He has the idea of exactly how to
imitate a person in situations. The
ability to create rambling of a drunk 18 year old in Holden is point on.
He also did very well with creating
images. The closing image to the story not
only pulled the story together, but you could see and feel the moment while
reading it. Almond made it feel as
though you were there on the porch with Astrid and Tommy.
Finally it easy to connect to this
story especially as a student at a small school. The story explained how it felt to have the
same social events week in and week out.
This made the story real to me, I could see myself in Tommy’s position.
Pornography
This story was horrendous to
me. The theme of the story never went
anywhere. It made me think of the
stories at parties when people sarcastically say “Sweet story bro! Tell it again!” The biggest problem was that there was no
character development. I felt as though
one of Almond’s fantasies was watching girls fight. Since the story was so short, the lack of
development as the story began and I waited for closure, nothing happened. Be far the least entertaining story in the
collection.
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