Challenge 839

Hard Riding

1. In Montaha Hidefi’s The Day I Hit Sulaiman, how does the author feel about the mistreatment she suffered as a child? How does she show understanding despite injustice?

2. In Robin Helweg-Larsen’s Windsor and Oakes, 1943, a Review Editor points out that the Duke of Windsor and Oakes were close friends and that the murder prosecution was contaminated by fabricated evidence. The case was never solved. How much of the poem can be taken as factual?

3. In Paul Revis’s Happy Farms:

   1. What is the narrator’s motivation? Why does he go to great lengths to investigate “Happy Farms”? What brand name might have allayed his suspicions: “Unhappy Farms”? “Indifferent Farms”?
   2. What does the story imply about the advertising of dairy, produce and other food products?

4. In James Penha’s Leaves of Peace:

   1. Is Halim’s survival of his disease and painkiller overdoses supernatural?
   2. How does Imam Iskandar feel about Halim’s and Tomi’s homosexual relations as youths? Does his attitude come as a surprise? If so, to whom?
   3. How might Halim and Tomi be treated in other locations or societies?

5. In Gary Clifton’s Little Tina’s Ear:

   1. What clues might lead readers to suspect that Silsbee is the culprit in Clara Mae’s disappearance?
   2. How do the townspeople feel about Brannigan’s account of his and Bear’s confrontation with Silsbee? Are they unanimous?
   3. To what stories in the “Brannigan cycle” do the references to Sheriff King Fisher and Hang Tree Gulch allude? What might they imply?
   4. What is the function of the Wilcox Brothers’ Carnival in the story?

Responses welcome!

Copyright © January 13, 2020 by Bewildering Stories
What is a Bewildering Stories Challenge?