"Virginia City" by Claire Vaye Watkins

T: “Virginia City”

A: Clarie Vaye Watkins

B: Battleborn, 2012

“Virginia City” does a lot that I want to do, including make a reader gasp out loud at the last sentence while reading on a fully packed subway.  Towards the end of the story (4/5ths through), the first person narrator leaves the particulars of her story for what sound like some generalities (I’m sure there’s a name for this narrative tone… anyone?): “There are plenty of good reasons to find yourself in Virginia City” (258).  In the next sentence the narrator goes immediately back into the context of the story with a flashback: “The first time we came, we came because Jules wanted to stand in the spot where Mark Twain stood.”  This paragraph more or less initiates the final, climatic scene of the main plot, in which the conflict between the characters explodes and all is lost (page 261). 

In the resolution after the climax, Watkins repeats the phrase at the start of the penultimate paragraph: “There are plenty of good reasons to find yourself in Virginia City, if you need one” (262).  It’s a brilliant move, because 1. it relieves some of the tension of the dramatic climax, 2. it makes the sense of change palatable—the phrase does not feel the same after the drama has unfolded, and 3. it alerts the reader that something poignant is coming, something you should pay attention to because this might just be the point, that we’ve entered the realm of poetry, so watch out.  In a subtle story, and what good stories aren’t subtle, such signposts are tricky and welcome.  This time the narrator lingers in the realm of the general for a few sentences then concludes with this beautiful iteration of the theme: “There are plenty of good reasons to find yourself in Virginia City, but there’s only one reason.  We came to time-travel.” I love the way that second sentence (“We came to time travel”) is both personal and character-specific (Jules, for example) and, in the context of the paragraph, general enough to apply to anyone (any tourist who wants to stand where Mark Twain stood).  (Also, this is the first explicit mention of “time-travel” and it’s at once completely a shock and completely perfect for the context—at once inevitable and unguessable.)