Farallon

A Story

by Renée Thompson
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This is one of the more enjoyable stories I've read this year. It has good pace, great descriptions, and a main character this reader could sympathize with. One nice thing about this story, as opposed to others I've read this year (about 300 total), is that Moffet grows as a person. He is not the same man who arrived on the Farallons as the one who left.

I would recommend this story to others and intend to send a link to a number of my online friends. I'm sure they will enjoy it as much as I did.

I note the first comment calls this story "enjoyable." That's not the word I'd use, though I agree with it to some extent. This story is a shaking-up experience. In its unhurried, lyrical, tough details it's like something from another century. Melville couldn't do the sea more justice. The moral imperative informs the whole so that the impact is like that of a good sermon. Wonderful!

Renee Thompson's story about redemption pulses with emotional intensity. The reader feels the eggers' pain and relates to Moffett's spiritual emptiness, an emptiness beautifully captured in the following lines, "But just when Moffett thought he'd found his footing, the world broke loose again."

The male narrator was both sympathetic and mysterious, and the cast of lost souls were each distinguished. I felt drawn into the story, propelled to another time and did not feel the discrepancy between the author's style and the time period, as someone pointed out. The language works as much for it's honesty as it does for the rhythm and structure.