"Sharing the Hostage" is placed just right in this collection, as it is a piece of fluff that holds the reader hostage, away from the final story in the collection. We stay with it, hoping it has somewhere to go, but in the end, this story about "Flamingo Beach" on Long Island, and a divorced couple that shares the custody of a tortoise named "Fred" is caught in the web of its own rhetoric.
We never learn the name of our hero, but we learn he has had some success as a ventriloquist with a homemade dummy named Dr. Whipple.
The hero of the story is courting a new girl-friend, Maddie, who has just gone through a divorce. Her ex-husband retains the house, and to avoid the turtle dying from removal from the comfort of his home, "Fred" remains with her ex-husband.
Our hero, who has ambitions to become a lawyer, is smitten with Maddie. But early in the relationship he warns her that schizophrenia is rampant in his family. He has vowed he will never have children. For most of his dates, this has been deal-breaker, and the relationship ends.
But Maddie shrugs it off, and tells our 'hero" that she has a worse secret--sharing her story about joint custody of Fred the tortoise. She insists that he must take her every Saturday to visit Fred.
On this first visit, the ex-husband, Michael, warns our hero to stay in the car. Under no circumstances does he have permission to enter his house.
Suddenly he recognizes our hero as the ventriloquist he had taken his niece to see on her seventh birthday. Michael leaves for work as he shakes his head in wonder that his wife left him for a ventriloquist.
A few minutes later, Maddie comes out of the house holding a damask curtain which he learns is hiding the turtle. She buckles the seat belt and commands our hero to drive. Of course, he heads for Flamingo Beach. Maddie leaves the car to dig for earthworms for Fred, using our hero's prize coffee cup. This leaves our hero free to carry on a ventriloquist-style conversation with the turtle. He offers the turtle freedom and tries to get him to leave the car.
Maddie returns with an empty coffee cup. She realizes they have made a mistake, and insists that they return to the house. She puts Fred back in Michael's house, and the weekly Saturday visitation will continue with everyone sharing the hostage "until something gives."
This is not Appel at his best. Appel often contrives his narratives with surprising shifts that can be jarring, lifting you out of the narrative and reminding you that this is just a trick, a device of language, like a magician pulling a dove from a hat, or a ventriloquist throwing a fake voice at a dummy, hoping you will not notice and will go along with the charade.
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