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Big Me
- GenresShort Stories
Audio
First published December 4, 2001
90 people want to read
About the author
Dan Chaon
44Ìýbooks1,412ÌýfollowersDan Chaon is the author of Among the Missing, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and You Remind Me of Me, which was named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, The Christian Science Monitor, and Entertainment Weekly, among other publications. Chaon’s fiction has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, and The O. Henry Prize Stories. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award in Fiction, and he was the recipient of the 2006 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Chaon lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and teaches at Oberlin College, where he is the Pauline M. Delaney Professor of Creative Writing. His new novel, Await Your Reply, will be published in late August 2009.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 3, 2012
Not really a review - just organizing my thoughts after having just read this terrific story...
The details and voice in this story are so striking & strong that I thought I was reading a memoir.
Summary: Adult Andy remembers the downfall of his family that began in earnest when he was 12. Boy Andy loses himself in a richly-developed alternate world, while blacking out and wiping out memories of the real one. Boy Andy becomes obsessed with a stranger-come-to-town - a "Dreadful Double"/ghost-of-Christmas-future character who takes up residence in the boy's old secret hiding place. What will become of Andy?
Themes: Identity formation & reinvention; Memory; Imagination; Doppelgängers; Fate; Family; Fear of becoming one's parents; Siblings; Childhood Ego Defense; Secret Identities; Outsiders
Function of Characters:
Brother: His existence lends the reader side-access into Andy's childhood - very important as Andy is quite unreliable and has large chunks missing from his memory. Of course the brother may be unreliable as well - Andy sure thinks he is - but his presence adds a layer of complexity and access that would otherwise be missing. It also rings very true that siblings would experience & remember different upbringings.
Wife: Andy's wife functions somewhat as a stand-in for the reader. Being a stand-in, she easily acts as a role-model for how the reader might choose to react to Andy, setting a tone sympathy and acceptance. This is important, as Andy is strange, disconnected from reality, and did some objectively awful things as a child (such as torturing cats, stealing, and spying). She reacts as many readers would to the things Andy says, therefore we don't have to be distracted with our own struggles against such a complex, complicated character. She guides the reader toward a sympathetic, take-him-as-he-is approach toward Andy. As a no-nonesense straight-man, she serves as a counterbalance to her unmoored husband.
"Dreadful Double": DD functions as a ghost-of-Christmas future, filling young Andy with dread over who he might become. DD is a blend of Andy's parents (drunk, sneering, distant, cruel) and also parts of Andy himself (alone, weird, outsider) - a man whom Andy clearly does not want to become, yet fears becoming. Yet Andy also seems intrigued by the man, having an "empty longing" for and "eager dread" of him after he disappears. DD also adds a mysterious, magical element to the story, as he is so odd & we also can never quite be sure of the veracity of what Andy reports to us.
Open Questions / Areas to Explore:
Are Andy's wife and daughters real? They certainly could function as real, but also could easily be Adult-Andy's fantasy family. How did young Andy grow to secure himself such a lovely family with which to balance himself?
I can't quite nail the mixed feelings Andy seems to have for DD. I understand the fear of failing & becoming like DD as an adult. My take is that the reason DD hovers so strongly over Andy's memories of this time is because Andy is profoundly concerned with what type of man he'll become, and the danger of becoming sad & creepy DD is always there. But why the longing & eagerness?
The details and voice in this story are so striking & strong that I thought I was reading a memoir.
Summary: Adult Andy remembers the downfall of his family that began in earnest when he was 12. Boy Andy loses himself in a richly-developed alternate world, while blacking out and wiping out memories of the real one. Boy Andy becomes obsessed with a stranger-come-to-town - a "Dreadful Double"/ghost-of-Christmas-future character who takes up residence in the boy's old secret hiding place. What will become of Andy?
Themes: Identity formation & reinvention; Memory; Imagination; Doppelgängers; Fate; Family; Fear of becoming one's parents; Siblings; Childhood Ego Defense; Secret Identities; Outsiders
Function of Characters:
Brother: His existence lends the reader side-access into Andy's childhood - very important as Andy is quite unreliable and has large chunks missing from his memory. Of course the brother may be unreliable as well - Andy sure thinks he is - but his presence adds a layer of complexity and access that would otherwise be missing. It also rings very true that siblings would experience & remember different upbringings.
Wife: Andy's wife functions somewhat as a stand-in for the reader. Being a stand-in, she easily acts as a role-model for how the reader might choose to react to Andy, setting a tone sympathy and acceptance. This is important, as Andy is strange, disconnected from reality, and did some objectively awful things as a child (such as torturing cats, stealing, and spying). She reacts as many readers would to the things Andy says, therefore we don't have to be distracted with our own struggles against such a complex, complicated character. She guides the reader toward a sympathetic, take-him-as-he-is approach toward Andy. As a no-nonesense straight-man, she serves as a counterbalance to her unmoored husband.
"Dreadful Double": DD functions as a ghost-of-Christmas future, filling young Andy with dread over who he might become. DD is a blend of Andy's parents (drunk, sneering, distant, cruel) and also parts of Andy himself (alone, weird, outsider) - a man whom Andy clearly does not want to become, yet fears becoming. Yet Andy also seems intrigued by the man, having an "empty longing" for and "eager dread" of him after he disappears. DD also adds a mysterious, magical element to the story, as he is so odd & we also can never quite be sure of the veracity of what Andy reports to us.
Open Questions / Areas to Explore:
Are Andy's wife and daughters real? They certainly could function as real, but also could easily be Adult-Andy's fantasy family. How did young Andy grow to secure himself such a lovely family with which to balance himself?
I can't quite nail the mixed feelings Andy seems to have for DD. I understand the fear of failing & becoming like DD as an adult. My take is that the reason DD hovers so strongly over Andy's memories of this time is because Andy is profoundly concerned with what type of man he'll become, and the danger of becoming sad & creepy DD is always there. But why the longing & eagerness?
October 9, 2015
The story starts off slowly but the build up to the message about the shape of our lives is well worth it. We forge a link in the chain of our existence every day and, in that forging, we tie ourselves down to those expectations and experiences. Everything we do is guided by the chains we are made to wear.
Fun story, a little long I think, but the message is solid and the prose engaging.
Fun story, a little long I think, but the message is solid and the prose engaging.
Read
October 29, 2021wait why did i really love this story?! the language was so good and kept me intrigued the entire time, and the sense of voice and character was extremely well-developed and distinct. i really loved all of the little details, and while i still have a lot of questions, i still feel satisfied with the ending.
October 29, 2021
not a big fan but it was still pretty cool. the switching between past and present self was hard to understand to me but it very much gave me joe goldberg vibes. i liked it.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
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