The Visitor (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Russell Banks
- First Published: 1988
- Type of Plot: Psychological
- Time of Work: 1986 and 1952
- Setting: Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania
- Principal Characters: The narrator, His father, His mother, George Rettstadt
- Genres: Psychological fiction, Short fiction
- Subjects: 1950’s, United States or Americans, Memory, Parents and children, 1980’s, Child abuse, Adultery
- Locales: Tobyhanna, PA
The Story
“The Visitor” is an account of how a man's past has shaped his present. As the story begins, the anonymous narrator tells of his recent trip from his home in New York City to East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania to deliver a lecture. The university is a short distance from Tobyhanna, where he lived as a boy; on an impulse, he drives the extra miles to visit the town.
Paragraphs about the narrator's childhood in Tobyhanna—his parents and their rage, a visit to the local bar, and the home in which his family lived—are interwoven with paragraphs...
[The entire page is 1563 words long]
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