Friday, January 24, 2020
Penpal
I read Penpal by Daniel Auerbach. The book is a collection of short stories, each one connected to the other but it can also be read by itself. The story involves the narrator who, during kindergarten, makes a pen pal as a class project. He ties a letter in an envelope to a balloon and lets it go. In the following weeks, his class mates begin to receive letters back, the narrator being the only exception. He finally receives a response back at the end of the year in the form of several blank envelopes, each having a Polaroid photo. When it finally develops, it is revealed to be several photos of the narrator taken from hidden positions. The rest of the story involves the narrator's strange upbringing with this stalker. He and his best friend Josh go through several more encounters with the penpal before the climax of the story.
The main character is never named, but you can still connect with them. Whether it be exploring the area around your house, or going to the movies with your crush, he is in many ways just a normal kid. But he also does not have a chance to live much of his life due to his penpal. Many aspects of his life are ruined, and he will never get them back. It is also more psychologically frightening knowing that there is someone out there who knows everything about you. He begins to become cynical and doubtful about everybody towards the end and you can tell that he is slowly losing his sanity.
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This sounds very interesting to me. When I first started reading your description of the plot I was expecting it to be like a wholesome story about friends who never meet, but then in the last third of the first paragraph it started to sound like a cool psychological horror/suspense story, but the second paragraph made me really interested. Normally I don't really like stalker stories because it feels like the only thing they focus on just the stalker idea, but this sounds like the stalker is more of a looming figure over everything that the main character does. It sounds like as scary as the idea of a stalker is, it goes very subtle with it. As if you as a reader could potentially forget about the stalker until you are inevidably reminded of their presence in the main character's life.
ReplyDeleteI've always been a big fan of suspense and psychologically disturbing stories, and the whole premise of a stalker following you since you were a little kid is such a scary idea that in my opinion is rarely done well, but when it's doen right is done really really well.