• Author: Andrew Shanahan
• Publisher: Independent publisher
• Publishing year: 2024
• Pages: 31

Review:

A therapy session

Indie-writer Andrew Shanahan contacted me via TikTok (who knew that would be a place to be contacted as a bookblogger ☺️) and he asked me to read his short story ‘I want you to write a letter’, so I squished it in between all my other to-be-read (it’s short so it wasn’t a bother at all to be honest).

Marla is a damn good therapist, in an office at the end of a corridor with a sliver of a river view. She has all kinds of clients/patients and one thing she asks all of them is to write a letter to the person that they want to address, someone important in their life, the person that made them for who they are and why they are in therapy: an abuser, themselves, a family member… and they have to be dead honest in that letter. And they have to bring the letter to her office and read it out loud… This is the best way to deal with their inner turmoil and anxiety or anger…

“Marla thinks that in the pantheon of great therapists, her name might not be etched on a marble statue, but she is proud of what she has achieved at the end of her long coffee-smelling corridor with its sliver of river and bag of letters.”

It may seem that 31 pages is vert short to write a good story but honestly if you are willing to let your mind add the untold info and let that fantasy of yours dwindle, it is just perfect to create the bigger picture (a picture that could be different for each and everyone that reads it). And short stories are the best way to leave some to the reader’s mind to add some missing pieces.

By writing this thought-provoking little tale, that ends in a way you may not see coming, from a third person perspective, it distances the readers and the writer himself from the events and like a fly upon the wall you witness Marla’s little tale. You suspect something to happen, you think all kinds of things but you don’t expect this.

By leaving you hungry for more (which won’t come) you are left at the table unsatisfied in front of an empty plate with only a smear of sauce… and this hunger makes you fill in the void and answers the unanswered (as said, it will be different for everyone else)

It has been a while since I read an indie (short) story but it made me realise I need to pick up some of the ones I have on my shelf, books that have been laying there for too long.

Thank you, Andrew for the opportunity and for getting to know you.