Fairy Tale Spotlight: The History Teacher [Short Story Review]

[I spoil this story. If you don't want to know the ending, don't read this.]

"The History Teacher" is a short story written by John Ragusa. It was published in 2012. It's another story I found in the "Down in the Dirt" magazine. I was not actually going to review it originally, but there are some parallels to the story "Lady Killer" by Donald C. White Jr. Oh, and I don't like this one. I'm writing this to kind of show how similar ideas aren't always accepted equally.

The story is written in the first person by a history teacher. For two solid pages, he explains how much he loves American history and how he is so very good at teaching it. Seriously, that's two whole pages of self-aggrandizement. I was actually kind of curious where it was going. It was certainly very weird to have so much exposition about how good a person is at something.

The problem lies with the very last paragraph. The history teacher just suddenly drops that the reason he is so good at teaching history is because he is a vampire. So he is long lived and stuff. He's been there and all that. Sorry, but that's really lame. I know this author thought he had a good idea, and maybe it would have been a great story is better presented.

I can totally see how a history teacher who is a vampire would actually work as a story. That is an intriguing idea, but to just drop it at the end to wrap up the story... I just don't care. It's barely interesting. I'd much rather know more about him than to just leave it that way.

With "Lady Killer," the vampire twist had so much substance baked into it. Not only was the intended victim a vampire, she was a vampire that was hunting predators. In that case, the twist was shocking and desirable.

You shouldn't just write a whole story and then place a "Reason: vampire!" sticker right at the end of it. You gotta give me more, man! So for that reason, I just can't recommend this one. It was an eye-roller. Although I would suggest that the author re-write it to be longer and integrate the vampire aspect into it better. I think the concept is excellent. It just needs to be delivered in a more palatable way.

This blog was written on July 26, 2024.

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