Written by TOM LAVENDER

Oral presentation
Tom Lavender

A short story is comprised of two things. Being short, and being a

story.

However, to make a good short story you can't just throw in some
gibberish about a lactose intolerant matador and expect to be on
easy street just because it's half a page long and small enough to fit
on a McDonald's place mat.

No, it takes more than that. A short story requires, among others, a
decent and flowing plot line, and exceptional grammar and
punctuation. But what is essential to any narrative is how it keeps
an audience's attention, engages the reader and builds suspense.

In my opinion, there are examples of many of these techniques

throughout 'A Dip in the Poole' by Bill Pronzini. His opening
sentence caught my eye immediately. “I was sitting in a heavy
baroque chair in the Hotel Poole's genteel lobby, leafing through
one of the plastic encased magazines provided, when the girl in the
dark tweed suit picked Andrew J. Stuyvesant's pockets.”

In 'A Dip in the Poole', the only three characters - the sly and
cunning protagonist of the story, the pickpocket and Stuyvesant, an
unaware elderly millionaire, are all depicted in the upper-class lobby
of the Hotel Poole. After carefully bumping into Mr. Stuyvesant, the
thief smoothly steals the old man's wallet and diamond stick pin,
and promptly makes off toward the exit. But much to her
annoyance, she is intercepted by the narrator who had witnessed
the theft take place. After revealing himself to be the hotel's chief of
security, he leads the lady into the hotel's lounge and shortly
reclaims the wallet and stick pin. Soon after the red-faced
pickpocket had fled the hotel, the narrator could be seen walking
through the entrance doors with a wallet in his pocket and nothing
in his way, finally revealing himself to be a crook as well.
Written by TOM LAVENDER

The author's non-simplistic yet deeply descriptive use of language

engages the reader, almost making you feel as if the entire scenario
is playing out in your mind. This work has put his narrative style to
good use, as the utilisation of a 1st person perspective helps to join
each paragraph to the next, allowing a reader to form a layer of
understanding, bringing to attention the next phase of the story.
This, in collaboration with a limited number of characters, saves the
reader from trying to backtrack through the story later on to find an
alternate ending they had missed earlier.

Another technique prominent in Bill Pronzini's narrative, suspense,

began to gather from paragraph three, when the hero of the story
has begun to give chase to the pickpocket, and finally came to an
apex during the conclusion, keeping the reader's attention from the
beginning, right through until the end, discovering the meaning
behind it all.

The common factor that joins most literature throughout history and
makes them memorable are morals. The hidden meaning of a short
novel that has more relevance in life. In 'A Dip in the Poole', one
man is stolen from, and in turn the robber has her loot taken from
her also. I then inferred that the moral behind this short story is
'Don't trust anyone'. Surprisingly though, considering that the
narrative is fraught with lies and deceit and it's negative slant is
evident end-to-end in the story, this negativity is still compromised
by the hero's humorous method of winning back his prize, edging
the story back to a more positive disposition.

I would recommend this short story to anybody at all. Bill Pronzini

has created a short novel that would capture your attention and
entertain you whether you are a frequent reader or not. Thankyou.

Written and Presented By TOM LAVENDER

Written by TOM LAVENDER