“Milk and Snails” is a fast-paced story about two sisters whose relationship is muddled by weight concerns. The older sister still torments her younger sister calling her, at times, a ‘fat ass.’ The majority of the story is a flashback to when the narrator was thirteen and intruded on her sister as she was purging in the bathroom. The story ends with the older sister chiding the younger sister and enlightening her on the benefits of bulimia.
The story features some colorful descriptions and nice details, including the cans of Schlitz trailing the newlyweds’ car and the instituted slang word ‘snails,’ for a tape measure, although the use of ‘snail’ could have been more effective if the story clued the reader into what it meant through context clues rather than outright saying it. Perhaps if this story were being told as a confession to someone familiar the way “We Didn’t” is narrated, then that might be possible.
The two nameless characters, the narrator and the sister, need to do some growing. The older sister has no apparent likable or redeemable qualities. The reader only sees one side of her, granted it is through the eyes of the verbally abused younger sister, making this one-sided portrayal understandable. We are told that she is a successful ballerina and the story could benefit from an expansion of the ballerina psychology, as I’m sure she has danced her entire life and it has no doubt dominated their household, maybe even at the expense of the younger sister. These are tracks that this story could explore and find more meaning within.
We are told almost nothing of the narrator, other than that she is probably slightly overweight. I’m sure there are a whole bunch of stories within her psychological makeup and they would help build the dynamic between her and her sister.
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