Under The Influence By Scott Russell Sanders
352 Words2 Pages
“Whatever” Scott's “brother and sister and mother may be thinking on their own rumpled pillows,” he “lie there hating him, loving him, fearing him, knowing” he had “failed him.” In the short story “Under The Influence” Scott Russell Sanders tells his story of having to pay the biggest price of his father's booze addiction. Can one young child ever get over the stressful, painful and scary life of living with a drunk alcoholic father? Troubled, afraid and struggling to cope with the fact that his father “quit living” Scott and his family kept his father's sin a secret from the rest of their community. Tragically surrounded by hidden half full bottles of wine and beer, Scott never hated his father. He “hated the Gallo brothers, Ernest and