Sympathy

Sympathy (2009) Jordan Castillo Price

I didn’t mean to reread this story.

I was looking for books where a main character deals with a long term injury or disability, and I ended up reading the entire thing.

I tried to brace my good leg and pull harder, get the lousy root ball up over the bumper, but it was no use. Leaves slicked the bottoms of my boots and I had no choice but to catch myself with my other leg— the useless leg— and the pain that shot up my spine was a cold, relentless kind of pain, nothing at all like the pain of my skinned knuckles. It was a pain that promised to linger. For days.

For a short as this story is (including boinking) it goes into quite a bit.

When it opens, I was convinced his brothers were awful. But as it unfolds, it becomes clear they just talk shit to each other, but care deeply–even if they can’t use words to say so.

I knew why Chip worried about me. He was the one who’d had the special waterbed installed in what used to be his rec room. He was the one who’d found me pounding on that fucking ramp in a blind rage till I drove splinters into my knuckles. He’d even changed a bedpan or two.

It’s an interesting story, and I think it does a good job dealing with not only the permanent changes to his body after the accident, but also the grief of losing his father.

Publisher: JCP Book

Rating: 7/10

• Browse the archives:
  
• Requiem for Mr. Busybody » »
• « « The Other Side of the Roses