Mr. Mickleson's Big Me

454 Words2 Pages

Big Me is a short story about an adult man, Andy O’Day, talking about his childhood and how he was when he was about twelve. He explains about his extreme imagination and about how he thought he was a detective. Adult Andy is married to a “practical women,” so as he tries to describe the events of his past to her he gives up and starts to keep it to himself. Andy O’Day has a dysfunctional family. His parents got divorced when he was 12. His dad was an alcoholic up until he died. He has two siblings, when he was young his brother, Mark, and him didn’t get along too well. Mark went through a lot of difficulty in his childhood, he tried to commit suicide the same year that their parents got a divorce. Young Andy was close to his younger sister when they were kids. As they grew up Mark became a physical therapist and Debbie got in a car accident that left her with brain damage. None of them are in contact with their mother. Louis Mickleson was a new neighbor. Andy became fascinated with this …show more content…

Is Mr. Mickleson Andy’s biological father? That would be my main question. It hinted at it, but I wasn’t ever sure. How much of this is based on the authors real personal experiences? Has he ever talked about it? I enjoyed the style of writing. I like the back and forth between the past and present. There was a good amount of detail. I could sense the different types of personalities of most of the characters. Like how Andy’s wife was practical or that Andy’s dad was abusive and violent. This week’s reading in our writing book was the beginning of chapter two. This focused on significant detail. I am happy we read this before doing the second exercise. I am guilty of not giving enough significant detail. My next writing exercise I want to be mindful of using the five senses to create a story that the reader can really get into. I believe that the story Big Me was successful at using significant