Too Bad About Mrs. Ferri

When he was only eight, August Kleinzahler's neighbour was shot as a result of a mob hit. This would seem like a terrifying experience to most of us, but Kleinzahler seems to have taken it quite well. There seems to have been a great many interesting characters in Kleinzahler's childhood neighbourhood. Indeed, he is able to remember much about these various people, but only from an eight-year-old's perspective, which is somewhat different than that of an adult. Kleinzahler succeeds in retelling stories about his neighbours by telling the story as an adult, but at the same time inserting the emotions and feelings that he had in those stories as an eight-year-old. For example, he comments on his school antics, saying, "Other popular terms of abuse were "faggot" and "douche." The use of the latter is somewhat mysterious; it was directed exclusively at other males and no one had any idea what a douche bag was." Kleinzahler is retelling us the story as an adult, but at the same time he acknowledges the fact that at the age of eight he had no idea what calling someone a douche bag meant. This melding of maturity and first-hand experience make it much easier for us to associate with Kleinzahler as an young child.