I think the fic is off to a promising start, and I liked the image of the two rivers coming from different directions, meeting, and after some initial struggles, rapids and muddy waters forming one bigger, stronger and united one. It seems very fitting in order to describe the J&E that might be emerging in the fic when we get to know them better.
Heya Mikaela!
Here's a photograph of downtown Pittsburgh. From this angle you're pretty much looking east from the Ohio River towards the Allegheny (the smaller river to the left in the pic) and the Mon (the larger river to the right). This part of the city is called the Point, because it's where the 3 rivers converge and the bit of land that contains downtown comes to such a crisp point. The camera is positioned on the south side of the Mon. River. Lots of steel mills used to dot both rivers and the Ohio, but now most of those are completely gone. The Edgar Thompson Works steel mill mentioned in the story is one of the only steel mills that still exists in the area (and one of the oldest/ most historic mills). If you follow the Mon. from this point shown in the picture for many miles southeast passed downtown you'd eventually come to the mill. And, the mill is in the borough of Braddock, as the story mentions. Braddock is a tough part of the metro area... but there are also little artist enclaves in that area too these days.
<img src="
http://www.divshare.com/img/3386061-e25.jpg" border="0" />
The confluence of the rivers is a nice metaphor for Jack and Ennis coming together. I agree.
All of the local details seem accurate in this story so far. The borough names, neighborhood names, street names, etc. are accurate. For instance, Observatory Hill, mentioned in reference to Jack and his mother is on the "North Side"... meaning the land north of the Allegheny River. In terms of Pittsburgh geography, Ennis and Jack are more or less coming from opposite ends of the city.
I just finished reading the two chapters, so I feel like I can comment here for real. The incident between Ennis and Alma was certainly hard to read. But, there was a good sense of realism to it. I'm not terribly surprised that Testa Dura would be interested in dealing with violence against women as a theme, and handling it in a serious way... In her other stories (I don't think this is really much of a spoiler), one of the main "other characters" is a woman who has survived a rape and a lot of attention is paid to the repurcussions of that event on her life, etc.
I'll be particularly curious to see how Jack's role develops. I also really liked his boss Trudy.
And, not to be-labor the discussion about accents and dialects... I noticed that Jack and Trudy don't seem to speak the same way as Ennis and Alma. The writing of Jack and Trudy's dialogue seems very straight-forward and un-accented. I wonder if the missing "g's" at the end of words when Ennis and Alma speak might be meant as an indicator of different social group. I'm not sure that dropping the "g" at the end of a verb, like "goin'" or "walkin'", etc. is necessarily exclusive to Wyoming or a western accent. The use of "warsh" I thought might be an attempt at throwing in a Brokieism. But, yes, I think it's too soon to really know a lot about the backgrounds of any of the characters.
p.s. Heya Roux! You're post came in as I was writing this.
