The Direction of Scarlet
My "Scarlet Yearnings" review, story by story: "The First Time She Met Her Father".
I’ve briefly reviewed Scarlet Ibis James’ just-released book Scarlet Yearnings on Goodreads.
Read them once, read them again. There are depths here. Depths worth exploring and savouring.
Long story short; I loved it. It is a collection of brilliant little gems packed into a hundred pages.
This is an example of storytelling done right. Scarlet has painstakingly packaged her themed stories into a coherent whole. In the days to come, I’m going to pull apart the stories that touched me most deeply. Not just fair in the feels but as examples of storytelling.
The collection begins with a short-short. Four hundred words, each one carefully chosen. As a writer whose own style is long on sprawl, I admire this immensely.
“What’s your favorite color?” he asked in a booming voice, making Trisha’s body tremble.
She giggled and looked up sideways at him through her dark curls before saying, “Red.”
This was the first time she met the person Granny said was her ‘daddy.’
Wow! What an opening. Bang, bang, bang! we meet three characters, we know their relationship, we know that there is something odd about it.
There’s a world of backstory here and barely a word has touched our eyes yet.
Right from the start, Scarlet uses the “show, don’t tell” maxim as a weapon, hitting the reader with the details and forcing them to use their own resources to get involved. Already we are filling in the blanks Scarlet hints at. Conversations, relationships, histories, personalities.
Perhaps not so much a weapon as a tool of friendly persuasion. We might be guided through the story rather than frog-marched but make no mistake here, the writer is directing us firmly and if we go too fast, we’ll miss things.
A child’s favourite colour. Just a whim, right? Like your favourite dinosaur or Bluey character.
In this story, every word is working hard. Trisha says “Red” and the reader needs to pay close attention to where Scarlet is taking us.
We meet that word three more times in this brief encounter and each one is laden with significance, the final one hitting us smack in the heart and ripping it right out.
Other details tell the story. “Daddy” digs into the delicious meal his mother has prepared. We can practically feel the texture, taste the spice. His focus is on the food, and not his daughter that he is interacting with for the first time as a distinct person.
She is filled with yearning to know more, to tell more, to begin a relationship with her closest relative. We feel it. There is a line - written but unspoken in the staccato conversation described - that tells us exactly what is in Trisha’s heart.
Yearning. Yearning for love.
For a few brief moments, we are that little girl and we are feeling what she feels.
The colour red comes up twice more. It could be a link, a bond between two family members but instead, it turns into something else.
This book says it is full of stories of love and desire. There is nothing carnal in this little gem but it matches the promise perfectly. A little girl yearns to be loved by her father.
Four hundred words but what happens in this brief scene changes Trisha’s life. Change and growth are the hallmark of a good story and here we have both poignantly and powerfully presented.
We feel every nuance of character and emotion and setting. Every one of these four hundred words hits home and by the end, we are shredded.
Scarlet has chosen her lead story well. After that tour de force opening, the reader is drawn in to find out what comes next.
I’ll be having more to say on the next stories. If you don’t have a copy of Scarlet’s book, follow that affiliate link above - or simply search on Amazon - and you’ll get the whole of the first story - and more! - in the “Look inside” preview.
After that you’re going to have to buy the book - in print and ebook formats and soon on Audible - or hunt down the earlier versions of stories published on Scarlet’s Medium and Substack accounts.
I recommend buying the book. It is a handsome product inside and out and the one criticism I have of the paperback edition is that it doesn’t have title and author displayed on the narrow spine.
I am looking forward to more books in this series and on other themes. Give us more, Scarlet!
Britni
Note: Links in boldface are affiliate links. I receive a small commission if you make a purchase from the site. As always, I urge independent review and purchasing.
B
Thank you again for the kindness and care you put into your review. It inspires me to keep sharing stories that reflect love, desire, and the diverse experiences of the imagined humans in my heart.
Oh, Britni - thanks for your pin - it continues to drive folks to my little corner of Substack! I'm putting the finishing touches on the next collection of short stories. Just applied edits to the first story which is the first story from the grandmother’s point of view 🔆✨ I think you might love it.