Discussion Notes: What Splits Us Find this weeks story here: What Splits Us by Mark Farrington. Next weeks story: Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Rated: Explicit Gerald couldn’t join us this week, because he is on his annual caravan road trip in France. This week’s story was chosen by Gerald, and he left us with one heck of a story! What Splits Us by Mark Farrington left Maya, Anais, and Rammy feeling emotionally flat, but with a lot to analyze and dig into. Despite the explicit content, neither the story’s kink nor characters moved the three hosts. Maya and Anais agreed that the characterization of Sara felt unreal, while Bob resonated with Anais. Maya wished Bob would have taken more risks and thought more on his new role as spanker. Anais enjoyed the story intellectually, but agreed that the story stirred no emotions, while Rammy railed against the explicit nature of the story and once again made a plea to pre-read stories before submitting them. The three hosts agreed that the prose was clean, but discussed the extent to which clean language robs a story of emotion. Maya makes an admirable attempt to convince Rammy that explicit stories can still have literary merit. Was Rammy finally convinced? Also, don’t forget to rate the story! For the history of our goofy system, see Anais’ post “Read Short Stories or Ray Bradbury Cries.” On a scale of 1-6 Bradberries, how do you this story? Tell us in the comments below or via voicemail. Also your reviews on iTunes help us grow. Please search Literary Roadhouse in iTunes and leave reviews for all of our shows.