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Red from Green

One of my all-time favorite stories is Maile Meloy's "Red from Green":

The summer before she turned fifteen, Sam Turner took her last float trip down the river with her father. It was July, and hot, and the water was low. Hardly anyone was on the river but them. They had two inflatable rafts with oaring frames--Sam and her father in one, her uncle Harry and a client from Harry's law firm in the other. In the fall, she would be a sophomore, which sounded very old to her. She had been offered a scholarship to a boarding school back East, but she hadn't accepted it yet. Applying had been her father's idea, but now he looked dismayed every time the subject came up.....

Meloy loves the idea of the child protagonist--the sensation you get when you, the reader, understand there's danger in the air, and the protagonist doesn't have the same apprehension (because the protagonist is just a wide-eyed, trusting child). This is a big feature of the novel "A High Wind in Jamaica"; it's part of Ann Patchett's "Commonwealth" and Meloy's "Don't Become Alarmed"; and it's at play here, in this story, as well.

So, for example: The writer knows why this is Sam's "last" trip. (Sam does not.)

And: The writer has some curiosity about Uncle Harry's client, but Sam, a self-involved teenager, is preoccupied with that scholarship form back home.

And: The writer understands how Sam's dad could be both in favor of the boarding school AND "looking dismayed," whereas Sam, a child, maybe expects her father to be consistent and invulnerable (as any child would want her adult to be).

The story--the journey down the river--is the story of Sam's journey from childhood to adulthood.

The title--"Red from Green"--refers to a certain lawsuit (workers, damaged by chemicals, can no longer tell red from green at a stoplight), but it also refers to a general sense of lawlessness and queasiness, a sense you will get very quickly, from this story.

The tale is the second in Meloy's "Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It"--an important position in any collection of stories--and I recommend it. Happy reading!
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