“That’s the path of the book: How is Linda going to be her true self and be accepted?”
Massive spoiler alert
To start, I would like to say I respect Kate Folk for creating such an interesting concept. I don’t like using the word weird, but that’s the best way to describe this story.
That ending was interesting to say the least.
I think the last revelation of Karina makes you rethink why she tried so hard to help Linda. Did she actually like her or was she just trying to clean her conscience? Maybe the ending was her accepting that she wouldn’t be able to live with the guilt of what she did to Cammie. Or maybe she truly just did accept Linda for who she was.
“I couldn’t believe it. I’d told Karina everything, and she still wanted to be my friend. This was what I’d wanted for so long, and thought was impossible—to reveal my true self and be accepted as I was.”
I read in an interview Kate Folk gave she compared Linda to the mc from Convenience Store Woman but I kind of have to disagree with this comparison. The MC from convenience store woman I agree with her form of self acceptance since she just wanted to work in a convenience store and not be married. This is completely normal behaviour and I don’t see anything wrong with this. I can understand that some people have different views and can be spiritual but being attracted to planes and Linda’s behavior was not OK for her or the people around her and at first it was kinda of funny but towards the end you see when she started saying everything bluntly how much awful things she did.
https://www.cntraveler.com/story/kate-folk-sky-daddy
I say this as someone who is neurodivergent and is aware some people have special interests. I can be delusional at times and I am working on it and it can be frustrating to think that you are doing the right thing and saying the right thing, but that behavior is not OK and shouldn’t be enabled and I don’t think it’s like Convenience Store Woman I think it’s more like Don Quixote, who himself endangered others around him for his own selfish endeavours but was able to realize he was wrong in the end and admitted he should have changed his ways on his deathbed.
Kate Folk did talk about Linda’s self awareness, especially at the end when she at least shes realizing she is selfish and manipulative-
“I told myself that the universe might be waiting to unite us at the last possible moment, out of its perverse love of suspense. But it had become difficult to muster enthusiasm after so many disappointing dates. I wondered if N92823’s soul had been sucked out during his long rehabilitation. Or maybe the truth was simpler. Maybe N92823 had never loved me, and the turbulence I’d enshrined in my memory had been the product of nothing more remarkable than air patterns, as everyone else assumed.”
I think grief and guilt were big themes. I thought it was going to go the electra complex angle but with this quote it made sense – “I’d been trying to outrun my grief, and it worked as long as my money lasted. While I was airborne, I could imagine my dad was still alive. Flight was suspended animation, a period in which a person was exempt from obligation, cut off from the grounded world.”
I think for Karina that’s what it was too.
It did have funny moments, simon’s character especially. This was probably the funniest moment for me in the entire story-
“I’ve been eating out of the trash,” I added.
Karina grimaced, and I saw I’d finally managed to offend her. “Ew, Linda,” she said. “Don’t do that.””
Overall I thought it was an interesting read. There were some tropes that were common like Dave being the token douchebag selfish male character and even Linda herself being( I’m finding this to be such a recurring thing since that represents how a lot of people are)a socially isolated delusional unreliable narrator.
I’m curious to hear other’s thoughts on the story?
by harroldinho