In the Gloaming (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Alice Elliott Dark
- First Published: 2000
- Type of Plot: Domestic realism
- Time of Work: The 1990's
- Setting: Wynnemoor, Pennsylvania
- Principal Characters: Janet, Martin, Laird
- Genres: Short fiction
- Subjects: Child rearing or parenting, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Mothers, Parents and children, Homosexuality or homosexuals, Twentieth century, Pennsylvania, Death or dying, Funeral rites or ceremonies, 1990’s, AIDS
- Locales: Pennsylvania
The Story
“In the Gloaming” focuses on a mother's efforts to come to terms with her son's dying of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). The story begins when Laird, the thirty-three-year-old son, comes home to die and says he wants to get to know his mother, Janet. Martin, the father, is obsessed with his work and has never had much time for his wife or children. On a summer evening, after they have eaten on the terrace and the father goes to his study to work, Laird looks at the sky and says he remembers that when he was a child his mother told him that this time of...
[The entire page is 1409 words long]
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