Percival Everett- Half An Inch of Water

Half An Inch of Water by Percival Everett

Cortland Hunter

·      Little Faith- C

·      Stonefly- A

·      A High Lake- B

·      Exposure- B

·      Wrong Lead- C

·      The Day Comes- B

·      Finding Billy White Feather- A

·      Liquid Glass- B

·      Graham Greene- B

“Little Faith”- C

This story contains very interesting subject matter. As a writer, I feel that the story is also rather drawn out, and does not know what type of story it wants to be at times. As with many things that I read, I make some sort of connection to it. I feel as though the author has injected certain aspects of his own life into this work, as some writers tend to do. The protagonist, Sam is one of the few people a color, one of the few Black people at that, in a Midwestern community in the early 1980’s. Sam is also a veterinarian, which is described as being a rarity for someone of his race. I gave this story a passing grade for this reason, among some other saving graces. The dialogue in the story reads like ordinary conversation, especially the dialogue that is exchanged between Sam and his wife. Everett is very concise, and does not specify who says what. As a reader, this is not difficult to figure out when the dialogue is well written. It is also not in quotes.

What I do not like is that the story is divided into two sections. It is like reading two different stories. The first is about a man who is not really fit into his environment as a person of color, and lacks faith. The second is about a man coming into his own and discovering his purpose by helping a Native-American family find their daughter. I might have enjoyed the story more had it ended with the first part.

“Stonefly”- A

            The second story in the collection, I found “Stonefly” to be much more enjoyable than the first. For one thing, I know what is at stake in the first one or two pages. There is lots of emphasis on a river in which several deaths have occurred. One of them is that of a woman named Rachel, who died there in a drunken frenzy. Both the river, and the tree near it on which there is a swinging rope, has very big roles in the story. The river and the tree are like silent characters. The protagonist is Daniel, Rachel’s brother, who was eight at the time of her death. Her death is the catalyst that sparks the events of the story. This was a very good move on Everett’s part. I always enjoy a good backstory.

This one is a page-turner. Daniel’s parents have been making him see a therapist every week, but he does not believe that he needs help. I saw several things in this story that I could relate to my own life. This largely due to my own upbringing and my personal experience with therapy. Daniel is only fourteen and cannot drive himself to his session, so his mother takes him. He does not have a lot of independence, and his parents are hard on him. The life he lives is very suffocating. What I love most about Daniel as a protagonist is his frank way of speaking. It is as if he says what l thought in my own situation, but normally refrain from verbally expressing. For example, the exchange he has with his mother about her wondering if he talked about her in therapy

. The author provides a very gradual buildup to the high event, which is what I expect to see in a story. Daniel, who is an outdoors person, requests to go camping near the river, where his sister died. His parents are against it, and think he is not all there. Daniel more or less begins to claim his power and freedom over the course of the story. His parents are confronted with the question of whether the therapy was for him or for them. This gives the story lots of nuance, and provides me with something to think about.

“Finding Billy White Feather” - A

The author has an interesting way of building a story around a titular character that does not even appear in it. There is also an interesting element of mystery to this story, because several details about Billy White Feather remain unclear. The protagonist, Oliver, drives from Wyoming to Colorado in search of him because of a note. Two horses were for sale with instructions to come to Billy White Feather If interested. Right away, Oliver is set up for some sort of journey that may or may not be fruitful for him. Like some of the other stories in the novel, this one depicts a marginalized group of people such as Native Americans. Oliver is not exactly sure as to the ethnicity of White Feather, whom he suspects may be Native American.

I am getting from this story what I expected to get from “Little Faith.” I know what is at stake early on. Oliver wants to find out who this person his, and drives goes on a bit of an adventure to achieve his goal. The plot is well executed. Oliver comes across several people who think that they know who he is talking about. One person describes White Feather as a tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed white man. The author brings me inside Oliver’s world. As a Southerner who has never set foot a ranch or a reservation, I didn’t think that I could relate to very many things in this collection. I now realize that I can relate more to Midwesterners than I thought.

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