Deluge - Charmaine Wilkerson - ★★★.½

AUTHOR: Charmaine Wilkerson

SERIES: Good Intentions, #3

GENRE: Short Story

PUBLICATION DATE: April 27, 2023

RATING: 3.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A short story about a woman who suddenly discovers that her identity isn’t what she has been told. Thought-provoking. Does not follow the typical path of such stories. Leaves some questions unanswered. A good mood-read.

Plot Preview:

About a year after her mother’s death, as Dina is making plans for her fortieth birthday, her stepfather reveals to her something that changes her entire perception of her childhood. As she struggles to make sense of what she knows through her memories and what she can recollect through some old photographs, Dina is forced to confront some hard truths about her past, and about what makes a mother a mother.

The story comes to us in Dina’s second-person perspective.

This is the third standalone story in the 'Good Intentions’ series, described on Amazon as “a riveting collection of stories about the instincts, fears, and fierce love inherent in motherhood.”

I don't want to get into spoilers, so I’ll just say: the big reveal that changes Dina's perception of her identity is a fairly common one in women's fiction. However, the manner in which the author has tackled it in this story is uncommon, and that makes all the difference. Add in the fact that Dina is almost forty – an age when we already know who we are and where we belong, and what we have is an otherwise-mature person struggling to be mature while facing the unexpected.

The narrative being Dina's, and the storyline being about a life-changing reveal, the plot is mostly introspective, focussing on the past and trying to filter through the memories to get to the truth. The only key character other than Dina is 'Steppie', her stepfather, whose role also does not fit into how stepfathers are typically depicted in fiction.

With the other key characters being just alluded to, the journey traversed by this tale is one of whys and what-ifs. Dina attempts to fill in the gaps of her past, but with only Steppie around to fit in a few of the many missing pieces of the jigsaw, there are some unanswered questions even at the end. Then again, that’s how life functions - we don’t always find all the answers we are looking for.

The titular 'deluge' refers not only to the deluge of memories that flood Dina's mind but also to a physical deluge in the form of a river flood. In that sense, this story can be called the aftermath of a disaster, with the disaster being both natural and human-made.

The second-person point of view adds to our involvement by making us one with the narrative, even though we might not have gone through a similar situation in our lives. I'm anyway slightly biased towards this voice, and it's a bonus when an author handles it well.

Why not a higher rating then? Because of these issues:

👉🏻 Why does every mother-child story need to have a mother with a secret?

👉🏻 Why no quotation marks for dialogues?

👉🏻 Why that one incident connected to Steppie towards the end?

This is my first time reading this author, and based on her intricate plotting and lyrical writing, I'd love to try her full-length works.

As of now, this is the only story where the theme has been tackled well, and the only one so far in this set that I'd like to recommend to short fiction readers. It’s not a must-read, but it’s a good option when you want something to ponder over.

This standalone story is a part of the ‘Good Intentions’ collection, and is currently available free to Amazon Prime subscribers.

After three duds, I finally hit upon a decent story in this collection. Here’s hoping that the trajectory of ratings will continue upwards!