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I will be an integrated strategic communications senior at the University of Kentucky. I am a member of Phi Eta Sigma, Golden Key National Honor Society, and a previously published author in Kaleidoscope . As an advertising major, creativity is a must – and I explore this through two of my favorite hobbies, writing and playing piano. I also enjoy reading, listening to music, swimming, and spending time with friends and family.
“Veracity” was written over the course of several months and has seen no less than five drafts. The story uses a limited omniscient ‘third-person' point of view to show the inner thoughts and turmoil of the main character, Isabelle, as she sits through her father's funeral. Flashbacks are used to show the close relationship between the father and daughter and what she learns from these events. Isabelle's frustrations and anger about the funeral become evident through her interactions with the various characters that are sent to check on her, until finally, at the end, she finds someone who truly understands how she feels. My faculty mentor, Nikky Finney, was a great help to me in the writing process, always willing to read over new material and critique it for me. She helped me better understand my characters, which allowed the story to flow more easily and take on a life of its own. As all great teachers do, she assisted me without being too intrusive.
I would like to thank several people who helped along the way – Nikky Finney, Christie Perry, Aaron Shraberg, and the members of my English 407 class, who all took the time to read through the story and offer me their thoughts and criticisms.
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Author's Note
Nearly everyone has attended a funeral at some point in their life. We're all accustomed to the kind of behavior that's considered acceptable in a funeral setting – the soft, kind words and happy, positive memories that are shared. The main character of “Veracity” disregards traditional behaviors when she is at her father's funeral, yet shows to the reader that she is honoring his memory in the best way she knows how.
v It was the smell that got to her first.
The sheer thickness of it choked her. It didn't matter that the A/C was going full force, the soft, insistent hum nearly drowned out by hushed whispers and sniffles. She lowered her head, gray eyes burning a trail through the cheap blue carpet as she shoved her way through the dense, suffocating crowd. Her elbows brushed across various fabrics: silk, cotton, polyester, wool... all dyed a somber black or navy blue. She was sick of looking at those fabrics, those colors, and even more so of the people belonging to them. She'd had enough of their sad, sympathetic eyes, their red, swollen cheeks, and their forced, watery smiles. And then, of course, the smell. The sickeningly sweet scent that emanated from the floral bouquets and seemed to mock her. It was powerful, overbearing, trying desperately to cover up the situation. She wasn't fooled. Death, she knew, did not really smell like roses.
This wasn't how he would have wanted it.
She heard the angry murmurs behind her as she wrestled through the field of mourners, but chose to ignore them. She was drowning, flailing in a dark sea of well-meaning relatives and so-called “friends.” She had to get out.
Her eyes lifted for the briefest moment, searching for an escape. She could see none, her short stature severely limiting her horizon even when she stood on her toes. The main door appeared to be blocked, hidden behind a wall created by a stocky couple – Tweedledee and a blubbering Tweedledum. Knowing she would never breach that barricade, she swiftly spun on black pumps and resumed her search. |
I find the significance and quality of "Veracity" to be clear, distinct and provocative. The language; lucent and lively. The theme; engaging and quietly sincere. The daughter character of Isabelle Atkins, is the energy and engine of the plotline. The writer wonderfully illuminates her emotional distance and paternal longing in vibrant non-predictable ways. As readers, we are brought into the world of the story straightaway. Perry's knowledge and use of mathematics, her close description of the funeral and of those who have come to pay their last respects, is metaphorically significant. Her flashbacks of family and girlhood moments offer astute historical references to the real-time, upheaval-moment, of the story in present tense. In the end, I believe, the power of this story lives in its ideals of ritual, tradition, and truth telling; not the truth that is on top but the truth that is unembellished and far sweeter than anything made of simple kindness and hypocritical expected gratitude. In the case of "Veracity" that core truth is painstakingly paced and revealed by an unsocial daughter's noble memory of her father. |
