Lying Presences By Norman Rush Analysis

Good afternoon.

talk about the story

I am going to be talking about the story Lying Presences by Norman Rush. This story starts in Jack’s office at work when his brother Roy comes into his office unexpectedly one day. Jack then remembers his father in a negative light and how he was a basement inventor and always striving to achieve a cause. Roy reminded Jack of his father. All Jack can see from his brother visit is the fact that Roy will ask Jack for money. Instead Roy asks to stay with Jack and his wife Judith, without Roy having to explain why he need a room. Jack tells Roy to go and get all Roy’s belongings from where he was keeping it. Whilst Roy is away Jack gives his secretary the rest of the day off because Jack is so ashamed of the way his brother lives and what Roy wears, so much that Jack can't have her seeing Roy. Jack demands Roy tell him why he was need a place to stay so Jack could tell Judith why Roy was staying.

Roy then starts to tell him about how when he was younger he had a alien encounter and when he got older he went The Society which were all believers in alien encounters.

Roy’s story starts when he gets kicked out of The society for having a different beliefs. Roy goes into great detail and explains his beliefs that there was no alien encounters at all and that there was a pattern that explained what all the people thoughts of encounters. Roy’s believed a mysterious set of monsters feed on fear. These monsters evoked fear with the beings of aliens, ghosts, the lochness monster and other creatures. And that these monsters must keep up with the times and society by continuing to reinvent and that is why the pattern keep changing and different abductions keep happening. Jack then realises that his brother was afraid to be alone because of the monster he thought was real. The story ends with Jack finding his way to get his brother out of his life once and for

all.

and what you think of it and how the story is written.

I really liked this story once i got into it as it plays to people supernatural thoughts with Roy's theory of aliens and how he thinks it ends up being one monster.

I enjoyed the way that Norman has the story’s plot evolve dramatically throughout the story. First it seem this story is about Jack hating his brother for being here and how much Roy is like his father. Then it moves to why Roy need to stay at Jack’s place, the story then seems to be about Jack listening to Roy and how Jack was going to get this brother to leave forever.

To me I think that's what made the story as interesting as it was, because the plot was always moving and you really had to concentrate on the story to keep up with the links and changes in Roy’s story.

Another aspect I noticed is that Norman made Roy seem both mentally stable whilst also seeming quite unstable at the same time. Norman achieved this by making Roy explanation to have thought through logic in this theory and using complex descriptive language. Whilst also making Roy’s speech pattern jumpy which made him look a little unstable to the reader.

After reading the sentence in the book that said “it sounds like what you are saying is to make something up.” There was always a little part of me wondering is this story and theory that Roy was telling all something he made up to wangle Jack to allow Roy to stay in his house for 2 months without actually telling the real story. It is another clever way that Norman has keep readers interested and see if Roy slips up anywhere.

Norman starts the story by describing in great details how Jack is a very structured man in every way of his life. It seems as the story progresses the reader understands why Jack is so structured and different. Jack is so worried about the way his brother Roy has turned out and that Jack wanted to be so different from his father, that Jack grew up to be the polar opposites from them.