The Coal Shoveller (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Keith Fort
- First Published: 1969
- Type of Plot: Antistory
- Time of Work: The 1960's
- Setting: Washington, D.C.
- Principal Characters: The narrator, Michael, Margaret, Amelia, Reginald Cowpersmith, An African American coal shoveller
- Genres: Short fiction, Antistory
- Subjects: Teaching or teachers, 1960’s, Intellectuals, Authors or writers, Writing, Honesty, Storytelling, Creative process, Truthfulness and falsehood, Hypocrisy
- Locales: Washington, D.C.
The Story
A writer tries to create a short story while looking through his window at an African American man shoveling coal into a basement across the street. He experiments with various stylistic approaches and characters but repeatedly gives up. After his first abortive attempt, he writes: “To ask words to make fiction into photographic realism is to demand a performance which they are totally incapable of giving.”
He begins a personal story. His six-year-old daughter enters his study and breaks his concentration, so he takes her outside into the snow. He is only...
[The entire page is 1560 words long]
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