Part of her short story collection Life Choices: Short Fiction Stories.

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Life Choices : Short Fiction Stories by Louy Castonguay


Does Flannery O’Connor live reincarnate in Maine! Jeez. I read the short story “End of Deceit” from this collection of short stories by Louy Castonguay. This is about as Southern Gothic as it gets, except the author appears to be a northerner. All I can say is that “End of Deceit” is a gem. But a dark gem. I write this still with a lump in my throat over what I read. Everything about this story shows writer mastery. There is the author’s control of time- going back and forth with methodical literary weaving- potent description of human emotion (guily, love, shame)…heck, there’s even command of meta devices such as *** to indicate time shift.

It’s funny, I didn’t know the author was a woman (not familiar with the name Louy) until after the fact, and my thoughts were ‘wow, this is a man that is tremendously gifted in writing about the subtleties of women.’ Alas, I was wrong. The author is a woman, and a very skilled woman writer at that. What is so hard to do when one writes is explain things enough without dumming the descriptions down so much that the reader doesn’t have to do any thinking themselves about what is going on. Such is not the case with how Castonguay writes. Man what a clinic she puts on in this short story. You aren’t old. You have blue eyes filled with cataracts. You aren’t a snippy old man, you are a man who demands salt on their fries with their order. You aren’t wearing something revealing, you are wearing a thin-woven chemise.

It’s a crime nobody has reviewed this work on goodreads to date. There is talent residing in the woods of Maine, and it isn’t just Stephen King. Check this lady out.

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