Critical Response to Kelly Muscolo's "States of Intoxication"

Kelly Muscolo’s “States of Intoxication” makes for a very engaging and entertaining read. It is a surprisingly endearing tale of family bonding. I have never read anything on the subject of marijuana before that sounded so, well, sweet. I also like how episodic the story feels. It takes the reader from the narrator’s experiences in high school all the way up through her time in college and never seems to drag (pun intended). The story is loaded with great, specific details, my favorite being the “giant psychedelic fairy blooming from a water lily.” These details really help to authenticate the story. The humor is another one of the story’s strong points. The use of percentages in the second paragraph and the father’s reaction on the phone in particular are good for a laugh. The narrator’s voice is pretty strong in places, but I would go even further with it and bring more of the narrator’s own unique language into the tale. I’m referring to the places where she says something like “man” or “ohmigod.” These seem to stand out right now. If it doesn’t seem feasible to work more such phrases throughout the story as a whole, then I might actually remove them altogether.
I do have an issue with the way the story opens. It isn’t immediately clear what the narrator’s home situation is. As the story unfolds, this becomes more clear, but perhaps there is a way of making this more immediately known to the reader. For instance, when she refers to her “lesbian mother” I wasn’t sure if this also meant her biological mother. I also have an issue with the opening line: “The first time my parents found out I had been smoking pot, the shit hit the fan.” Aside from the fact that this line is a cliché and doesn’t immediately grab the reader, the opening sentence also doesn’t truly reflect the moment in the story in which the narrator’s parents discover that has been smoking pot. We are told that there was yelling from the mother and crying from the narrator, but we don’t really get a sense of the gravity of the scene––and furthermore, the father is perfectly okay with the idea. So the shit doesn’t really seem to be hitting the fan. At least not that hard. I would change the line somehow or remove it from the story altogether.
I also have a few thoughts on the ending. Similar to how the father’s stories are largely entertaining throughout but peter off toward the end, “States of Intoxication” could use a more satisfying finish. Like the narrator, I was expecting something as grand as a gunfight after all of that talk about the mafia. But there was no slam bang twist at the end. No impending danger on the horizon. In all fairness, I do see how such an ending would actually detract from the overall tone of the story. It would go against the whole idea of releasing oneself from the cares of the world and becoming lost in a hallucinatory stupor. The best ending for this story probably is one in which absolutely nothing happens. However, I would like to see more done with the “nothing” of the ending. The father’s comical aside about not telling the stepmother doesn’t seem to be enough to cap off the family bonding session which has just taken place. Perhaps an introspective moment on the behalf of the narrator, one in which she reflects on her new attitude toward her father and maybe life in general, would provide for a more satisfying conclusion. I also question how well the tale concerning the family’s ties with the mafia gels with the rest of the story. It seems a little out of place and because nothing particularly important is done with it, I wonder how necessary it is to the rest of the story. But overall, this is a well-done story and is in a good place for future revisions.