Me and My Baby View The Eclipse By Lee Smith

Lee Smith' s Me and My Baby View The Eclipse

By: Sky Myers

Table of Contents

• Bob, a Dog..........B
• Mom..........D
• Life on the Moon..........F
• Tongues of Fire..........F
• Dreamers..........C
• The Interpretation of Dreams..........F
• Desire on Domino Island..........C
• Intensive Care..........B
• Me and My Baby View the Eclipse..........B

"Bob, a Dog" (B)

“Bob, a Dog” is the first story in Lee Smith’s Me and My Baby View the Eclipse short story collection, and it really gives you a preview about the overall plot of the collection, people cheating on each other and usually getting divorced. “Bob, a Dog” was about a woman who has recently been left by her husband. This story received one of the highest grades I gave because I felt like Smith detailed how Cheryl and her children were after their husband and father left was very realistic. I, myself have never experienced a husband, leaving me and our kids, but I imagine the aftermath would be very similar to how the family in the story reacts. For example, Cheryl believes that her husband will eventually come back, but she is still so distraught that she does not eat much and as a result starts losing a lot of weight, which seems like a very realistic thing that someone would do if their husband left them. The children even start to act out, the oldest starts smoking, one runs away, and another spends most of his free time shooting streetlights and other things. So, this story received a high grade because of how realistic I thought it portrayed a family in this type of situation, but it did not get an A because the dog really did not serve a purpose in the story, especially not enough to warrant it for the title of the story. Cheryl agrees to keep the dog because she thinks it will help one of her sons, but her son eventually loses interest, and Cheryl is the only one who ends up taking care of the dog. The dog also causes a lot of problems, he barks a lot, making the neighbors and the family frustrated, and he constantly gets out of his fence and it is near impossible to catch him and put him back because he is so big and rambunctious. The story ends with Cheryl managing to get the dog back in the fence after he escaped again all by herself and putting the last cinder block where he dug out, and then just relaxing in the backyard, which I guess is supposed to symbolize her moving on, but it really did not do it that well or it at least could have been done in a different way.

Tongues of Fire" (F)

“Tongues of Fire” is the fourth story in the collection, and I gave it an F because it really did not make any sense to me, which is why I choose to write about this one instead of one of the other stories that I gave an F. The story started with a little girl, Karen, talking about what her family was like during her father’s nervous breakdown, which then goes to the back burner when Karen started getting really into religion and from that point on, things get weird. Karen all of a sudden gets really into the preaching at her church, and then begins to pray without ceasing and make deals with God, she also starts lighting small fires all over her neighborhood. Then Karen makes a new friend and starts going to her church where people were more involved and into it than her Methodist church. Karen’s mother does not like this, especially after Karen gets baptized, so Karen is not allowed to go back or see her friend again, and she is sent away for camp during the summer. Karen ends up getting sick and because of a fever she starts talking in tongues, which she considers her language, at an assembly after she “hears” God talking to her. Karen ends up getting a cat as a gift for staying at camp after she became sick, but later the cat runs outside and gets hit by a car, which Karen says she knows was suicide, and that the cat was possessed by the spirit and was a holy cat because he was small, jerky, and meowed a lot. So, I understand what happened in the story, but what happened really does not make sense.

"Intensive Care" (B)

“Intensive Care” is the eighth, and second to last story in the collection, it was one of the three stories that I actually gave a B. The story was about a man’s wife who was dying and it starts out with him visiting her in Intensive Care, and we find out that Harold (the husband) spends most of his time there with her and that he still has hope that she will get better even though it is clear she will not and he has even been told this. At the beginning of the story, we learn that some people do not feel bad for Harold because of something he did, and it talks about how he gave up everything for Cherry (his wife), including his family. So, this really makes the reader wonder, but then after a while you feel bad for Harold, and you are sad for him, you learn what he did, he left his wife and kids for Cherry. This has happened in almost all of the stories so far in the collection, but this time you have sympathy for the person who left their family, and also for the second time you have a story where the protagonist is a man, so it was nice to have a different perspective. The start of the story was also very interesting and made me want to keep reading, which none of the other stories really did. I also loved the ending because it talked about what happened to each of the characters after Cherry died. The only thing that was weird and did not make sense in this story, which is also the only thing that held the story back from getting an A, was when Harold might have saw aliens, which happens right before the concluding paragraph about the characters’ lives after Cherry died.

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