ARTS

Senior readings diverse, evocative

Creative Writing majors showcase their own works of fiction

by Graham Johnson

Fairchild Chapel hosted one of many senior readings from the Creative Writing majors Saturday night. Reading excerpts of their fiction were seniors Jennifer Lapidus, Rumaan Alam and Laurel Harris.

Lapidus and Alam's work are similar in that they are both excerpts from larger works, and because they both deal with the relationship issues and disillusionment of twenty-somethings. Lapidus' concerns a young woman transplanted from Rhode Island to Oregon, and her inauguration into a household there. Lapidus deftly captured many of the worries that affect Oberlin students, to whom the community of hippies in the story bears a certain resemblance, suggesting that it is perhaps semi-autobiographical. It is an entertaining story, although not particularly ground-breaking or distinguished.

Alam's story was more successful at creating a sense of real tension, as a young couple embark on their first vacation together. Alam clearly had an established past and future for these very rounded characters that made one curious to hear more of their story. He is particularly adept at setting a scene and in broad strokes depicting all the interpersonal relationships and contacts within it. Although I question some of the story's believability (such as writing a check for American dollars in the United Kingdom), the realism of the characterization canceled out such concerns.

The real standout of the evening was Laurel Harris' short story, a highly original, chilling, convoluted work. In Static Electricity, a young woman's apartment is possessed by a poltergeist that is at once her lover and tormentor. Harris' fluid narrative style depicts an eerie, disturbed underworld of isolated characters and inexplicable events. Evoking images of rape and infanticide, Harris mockingly manipulates the horrified reader, revealing only enough to keep them hanging on for more.

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Copyright © 1999, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 127, Number 22, April 30, 1999

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