You Are the Stepson cover art

You Are the Stepson

Original Fiction Brought to You by Electric Literature's Recommended Reading

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You Are the Stepson

By: Matt Dojny, Halimah Marcus - introduction
Narrated by: Fleet Cooper
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About this listen

Matt Dojny's "You Are the Stepson" is one story told three different ways. Dojny uses "variations on a theme, like movements in a symphony, or parallel universes, existing side by side but never intersecting," writes Halimah Marcus, co-editor of Electric Literature, in her introduction this issue. "The opening to 'You Are the Stepson' tips the [listener] off to the elements that will appear in all three tales contained herein: a cancer-ridden stepfather and his stepson, a bicycle and a gun, and the desperate need for an apology, 'due to the situation with the ant.'”

©2013 Matt Dojny (P)2014 Audible, Inc. Anthologies Anthologies & Short Stories Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Short Stories

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as a short story made up of three shorter stories, the format is slightly confusing, but overall it's still interesting, versions of the same stepfather only surrounded by different circumstances, which could either be seen as the evolution of the same person, or as the changes which can result in a trigger for the stepson. a relationship between two "enemies", two typologies even, the stepson and the stepfather, emphasised at the very end through the stepfather's response: why? because "you are the stepson". potentially seen as "just" a micro-drama, but one which can have a big impact on a person's life, in this case, the stepson, slowly losing his mind, from mini-story to story, because of the stepfather.

good short story

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