Response to "Brotherly Love" by Kevin Boy

    “Brotherly Love,” is a story about two brothers, William and Steven, who are raising Steven’s kids. (I’m assuming the wife died because of the emphasis on family pictures, William doesn’t think Steven should keep “doing this” to himself, etc.)William is offered a better job, which means more money for everybody. The conflict is that the job requires the whole family to move, and Steven doesn’t want to move out of the house because three generations have lived there including his kids.
    First of all, I want to say I really enjoyed/cringed at the opening lines of your story. The image of a finger being sliced catches your readers’ attention, and I immediately wanted to keep reading. I liked the line, “A flap of torn skin, dripped red onto the plate in front of him, stained the corner of a loaf of bread.” Bread soaking up blood is nasty.
    One of the initial issues I had with the story is the confusion with characters in the beginning. I had to read back over a few times to understand the play on names with “William” being called “Aunt Wilma” and Samantha being called “Samuel.” I like that your intention is to create a playful relationship between these two characters, but changing around the names so early in the story is a bit distracting.
    One part that I found odd was the section about William’s rolled cigarette he keeps in his pocket. I never really understand why he kept it? Did his friend die from smoking? The speaker just explains to Sam that a friend smoked their whole lives since he turned fifteen and he keeps it to remember not to try it. So it just seems bizarre to me that someone would keep the same cigarette in his or her pocket just take it out to look at it to remember not to, instead showing that they have to resist the urge to smoke it. It may make more sense if William used to smoke and now he keeps one of his friends cigarettes to remind him of him.
    I also really like the humor between the brothers. I imagine them being these sort of grizzly Vince Vaughn type guys. I like the line, “Such a good butler I hired.”
    I must admit I’m still slightly confused by the ending for a few reasons. First, I wanted the robbery to be some kind of set up with one of the brothers playing a prank or something of that nature instead of a real one. The ending made me think it may have been a prank, but I’m still not quite sure. Second, I felt like the father or uncle of a little girl (one that only comes up to the hip)  should’ve been urged to get out of the room as soon as possible if the robber had a gun! Instead of thinking way to go saving the day, Sam, I was thinking, nice parenting, guys. (Ha). Maybe consider revising the ending in some way that seems serious but it was actually just a ploy to get Sam to agree to moving. I think the story has a lot of potential, and I really like the idea of the “brotherly love” theme. I’d really like to see the brother’s relationship take control of the story.