Thursday, May 10, 2007

New York Movie

After writing about the Edward Hopper retrospective yesterday, I went back and looked at all of his paintings, especially one of favorites: New York Movie. I've always wondered what that woman was thinking, what was on her mind that was so troubling that she could not watch the film just off to the side of the painting's left border. So, I decided to make up the story myself and wrote a flash fiction piece for Bryon Quertermous's new flash site, Flash Pan Alley.

The title of the story, like the painting that inspired it, is New York Movie. If you read it, let me know what you think.

New York Movie, 1939

2 comments:

Lyman Feero said...

Isn't she an usherette? the pinstipe and square shoulders would suggest it. I always figured she was waiting for the show to get over so she could sack her tired ass back home. Then again I'm a sucker for the mundane.

Steve Allan said...

She's just wearing a pants suit. They had those back then, right? No mistake on the part of the author.

Besides the story is just loosely based on the painting, hence the liberties of using a pants suit. I meant to put that in the story. She wore a pants suit to the theater so she could blend in with the theater workers and no one would suspect she killed her husband. Yeah, that's the ticket.