"With Sweat Stripes Across Our Bellies"

The story describes the narrator’s relationship with her family and how she is coping with her mother’s dementia. From the narration we learn that Connie and her family grew up in Pennsylvania and she eventually moved to Alabama but still visits her mother and father twice a year along with her husband and children. In between the scenes of describing the narrator’s past we are given a few lines of dialogue between Connie and her mother as they argue over medication.

First off, you did a great job of setting up the mood. After the first paragraph I didn’t want to read any further because I knew it would just make me sad. I think everyone can imagine how horrible it would be to have a loved one go through something as challenging as this so make sure you don’t lose that feeling.

 The main problem for me was that this piece is about 75% summary and 25% dialogue. I know I would like to see a couple more scenes with the family together; we can tell that Connie obviously loves her parents very much but we don’t see very much interaction between them except for the pills conversation and the very last scene in the garden. So maybe cut some of the summary and add in a few extra parts where we can see them dealing with her condition as it worsens, possibly a scene with her grandchildren where she forgets who they are or something else along those lines.

Also, I was a little confused about the ages of most of the characters. The age of Connie’s children is clear but as for the rest I wasn’t sure. Also, throughout the story the narrator refers to her parents in the past tense as if she’s already lost them but by the end they are both alive and (relatively) alright. By the way Connie carried on about her mother I was expecting her to end up taking more pills than was necessary and die as a result, so to me the ending didn’t quite seem finished since no definite change occurred.