About "Six Million and One" by Barry Gifford

            (Take a quick look at Six Million and One by Barry Gifford)

            I’ve decided that I like this one. There was some question as I moved through it, but I landed firmly in the “like” column by the end.

            No, I decided, I don’t think your main character always has to undergo (or specifically avoid) a deep, emotional change by the end of the story. The possibility doesn’t even have to be there. There is something to be said for the light ripples caused by events most would consider more worthy of a story. Why can’t we hear more about Izzy and what his home life really was like and who was he, really and how did his parents actually react? Well, all that can be important, but big stories like that have small effects on the people on the edges, and why shouldn’t those stories be told too? Why can’t we just get a quick vision of innocence contrasted with the shadow of pure evil via a quick story about how a boy first heard about the Holocaust? It’s a short story. That’s the perfect medium.