Terrific dystopian story told as diary: Father, feeling that he's letting his children down by various failures (messy house, not enough money, poor birthday gifts, credit cards overdrawn, general life-heading-nowhere-failing-my-kids) wins money. He uses it to make his yard beautiful for a birthday party for his 13 year old daughter and to buy her expensive gifts which she has requested. The crowning piece are the Semplica Girls--a version of foreign nanny/worker glad to be in America. Only these girls don't work--they simply hang in the yard as ornaments. Father to youngest daughter who is repelled: "But see, we're helping them by paying and they send money back to their home country."
Party is huge success, but later the SG's disappear. Father is responsible to the company for damages--thousands of dollars. It turns out that the younger daughter has let them go. Father has wife ask her parents for $. They refuse. Grim story in every imaginable way. Excellent.
Notable moments: Father, picking up daughter at school, has bumper fall off. Teacher helps get bumper into the car. Humiliating for 13 year old.
Returns home, puts bumper in garage, finds maggoty dead mouse/rat/squirrel in garage. Cleans it up, but there is smudge where the rat was . . .
Description of Father's own childhood gift--a basketball that was too bouncy. ABA ball. I had the same exact ball. Perfect description of it.
"Do not really like rich people, as they make us poor people feel dopey and inadequate. Not that we are poor. I would say we are middle. We are very very lucky. I know that. But still, it is not right that rich people make us middle people feel dopey and inadequate."
"Death very much on my mind tonight, future reader. Can it be true? That I will die? That Pam, kids will die? Is awful. Why were we put here, so inclined to love, when end of our story = death? That harsh. That cruel. Do not like."
Ironic final ending: Dad wondering about the SG's who have run off: "What in the world was she seeking? What could she want so much, that would make her pull such a desperate stunt?"
This does no justice to the story which has a richness and strangeness that is beyond my ability to describe.
Party is huge success, but later the SG's disappear. Father is responsible to the company for damages--thousands of dollars. It turns out that the younger daughter has let them go. Father has wife ask her parents for $. They refuse. Grim story in every imaginable way. Excellent.
Notable moments: Father, picking up daughter at school, has bumper fall off. Teacher helps get bumper into the car. Humiliating for 13 year old.
Returns home, puts bumper in garage, finds maggoty dead mouse/rat/squirrel in garage. Cleans it up, but there is smudge where the rat was . . .
Description of Father's own childhood gift--a basketball that was too bouncy. ABA ball. I had the same exact ball. Perfect description of it.
"Do not really like rich people, as they make us poor people feel dopey and inadequate. Not that we are poor. I would say we are middle. We are very very lucky. I know that. But still, it is not right that rich people make us middle people feel dopey and inadequate."
"Death very much on my mind tonight, future reader. Can it be true? That I will die? That Pam, kids will die? Is awful. Why were we put here, so inclined to love, when end of our story = death? That harsh. That cruel. Do not like."
Ironic final ending: Dad wondering about the SG's who have run off: "What in the world was she seeking? What could she want so much, that would make her pull such a desperate stunt?"
This does no justice to the story which has a richness and strangeness that is beyond my ability to describe.
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