Our January 2008 text first appeared in 'New Writing 12', published by Picador in 2004. When journalist Emma Brockes went to get material for a story about a man whose son had been murdered, little did she realise that it would result in the publication of a stunning short story called 'Visiting Time'. It is a story about revenge and accounting for actions and which has a twist that is both factual and literary.
    
     You can download the full text and the supporting material at BritLit - Visiting Time
    
     I hope you enjoy it and I look forward to reading your comments here.
     Cheers - Chris

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First of all hello again....and a wonderful 2008 to each and everyone of you.
    
     Well I have read "Visiting Time".....let me tell you that I had to read it twice...its writing didn't suit me...I think that John's family belong to a low social and cultural level, I insist on this because of the way they speak...but the way the father managed John's death was amazing!!!!!.....he could have killed the murderer but he didn't do it, first because he believed in God, and he is the one that gives us life and takes us with him when he decides to and second, because he thought about his family, that meant a lot for him....if he were in prison, he would have given them a terrible pain....He acted cleverly.
    
     So John's father didn't have any other thing to do, at least he saw the murderer, and would never leave in peace, which is the worst punish ever.

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Hi everybody! I read Visiting Time and I think this is a story that does not let the reader anticipate or predict what the end is going to unfold and it is precisely here where the strength of the story lies.
     A father in grief because of the loss of his son, a murderer, and an absence that can not be filled are the elements that combine in this narration.
     When I read the title of this short story I had the feeling that the narration was going to center on some pleasant meeting occasion, may be because here, in Argentina the act of visiting someone has very positive connotations, to my surprise, this particular visit had nothing to do with whatI thought.
     Yet, the biggest sirprise comes with the father´s attitude, which proved to be more effective than murder. His visit caused a deep feeling of guilt in the murderer who can not understand this father:'How can a
     man come in here and do what he did after
     what I did to his son?' yet , the father has a very clear reason why:"I never laid a finger,
     but in a way my hand's still round his throat.
     I went in there to kill a man, and to my way
     of thinking that's just what I did: He won't
     rest in peace." Sometimes the worst of punishments
     happens to be a well-meaning act.

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"Visting Time" is a good strory, though the author didn't employ a lot of art imagination or literature style of work on it.
    
     In the end you get an idea of a troubled mind which is a result of a great loss, but this mind denies to live again and rebels against the moral, the bringing up of his own children (he compares his children bringing up with others'), e even forget the siblings of the deceased. All he could see was death, the death of his mate early in his life, the death of a his son friend's father and so on, conjuring up a gloomy image. He could only be satisfied by the idea of having made "It" suffer!
    
     Langa

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My name is Cecilia and I teach Language and Lit at higher intermediate and advanced level in Argentina. We read Visiting Time in class back in 2006 with a group of senior students. They were caught in from the very beginning… I suppose this feeling had to do with their ages, as they could very well identify with the young characters mentioned, and the fact that most of us had been somehow involved in a violent experience in the streets of BA. The difficulties with the lack of grammar only made the reading process more interesting as students, funnily enough, probably experienced “in the flesh” the advantages/disadvantages of conventions… All in all I admit that the comments and conclusions as to the twists and turns of life and what we make of it were all thoroughly enlightening. For the sake of argument, we went on to compare and contrast this story with Good TV from NW 12 as well…

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I can't agree with Langa. My impression of "Visiting Time" was awe and amazement. The fixation and the persistence from the beginning onwards suddenly turn into self-satisfaction having realized that the worst punishment of all is to let the killer think about the fact that a father shook the hand of his son's murderer. It's not a troubled mind. The father is a hero. I got the impression, and I don't have to be right, that the father actually realized that no revenge is the best revenge of all if you let the one know that you actually had the choice to kill him and you rather chose not to.

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Hi Everyone,
    
     I have read "Visiting Time" and your comments about it. I really enjoyed reading such a variety of opinions. This is a great space for sharing and I just love this group and advertise whenever I can.
     Reading it for me was like a suspense story. I did believe the father would kill his son murderer at the end of the story. His hatred made him so powerful. However, I believe that what he needed was closure. He needed to tell the one that had caused his pain how much it hurt, how much he was suffering. The most beautiful and touching images are the ones describing the emptiness left by his deceased son.
     In a way he killed the murderer, maybe "killed" is not the right word. I guess he made him feel accountable for what he had done. I guess it makes us think about the issue of capital punishment. Killing people does not undo what the criminal has done and does not bring closure to the families of the victims and worse, it does not give the perpetrator a chance to reflect/repent on what he/she has done.
     Let me just tell an anecdote about this issue. I was in Oklahoma when Timothy McVeigh (the one that killed more than a 160 people exploding a bomb in the city center) was executed. For his execution there was a waiting list of people willing to watch his death through a glass window that would allow witnesses to see him but wouldn’t allow him to see them. These “witnesses” were some members of the press and relatives of his victims. People present at the gruesome event told reporters that although he could not see through the glass, he starred the “spectators” in the eye and no one could hold his gaze and no one actually saw his death. Relatives of victims wee also interviewed and said they have gone there looking for closure and hadn’t found and still kept feeling the same pain. So, what is my point? Had he been given a chance to die of old age, maybe he would have had a chance to think about what he had done, the pain he had inflicted on so many people, the innocent lives he had taken (there was a daycare center in the building he destroyed). It takes the guts of a father like the one in this story to face ones pain in face of big losses. I think finding closure is a difficult long process and everyone has to find their own ways. I just don’t believe that an eye for an eye is the best way of doing it. It has also occurred to me that one of the issues behind favoring capital punishment is our refusal of dealing with our worst feelings (especially hatred) and the awareness of our vulnerability, that we can also murder someone, we can also commit horrible crimes and consequently cannot pass judgment on no one. "Visiting Time" is a visit to his own feelings, it is a "know thyself" kind of visit.
    
     Hugs from Brazil
     Jose Antonio

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Thanks Yasmina, your comments has made me read the story again.
    
     In my point of view, the satisfaction of the father sounds not really, it seems he forces his mind to accept himeslf as a winner when in reality he's lost his life when he learned his son was killed. I try to look at things he says and things he does. He brings his picture as a brave man taking to his advantage that he's the narrator, but at the same time he can hardly hear when his wife asks "Do you want tea of coffee?" and she has to say it 3 or 4 times.
    
     He purely forget about Jane and Peter (among his children he rather love the dead than the alive, even keeps sending Christmas card to while John is no longer there!)
    
     He confess "there's things flashing through my brain, all the traumas, like when.." and then tell the stories or gives a list of the dead people he knew. No love at all but hate and revenge.
    
     The moral he tought his children was insulted now ("they was all lies") and one good thing which may divert your attention to a troubled status of his mind is that: He was a human in the end, and knew killing "it" would peharps worsen the matters for the others and himeself. But, he doesn't forgive "it", "it's too late for that"
    
     Langa

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Jose Antonio hits the point when he says "visiting time' is a visit to his own feelings"-the truth lies one side, his reality and vision about the world he lives in after great losses lies another side. He could hardly live again unless he imagined the reason for his suffering could be transfered to onether person, to "that stupid criminal!". his hope turned to be bilieving on that thought and forget the people around him who he could do well caring for and I bileved they cared for him (at least we see his wife attitude).
    
     I don't suppose that is something you can tell a father do please forget, wake up and live your life, but this is a strory for us to comment about.
    
     Langa

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Langa,
     Thanks for answering. I guess that "Visiting Time" touched me the way it did because of two reasons, the first being that I don't believe in revenge, at least not in the eye-for-an-eye sense; the second being that my father died at the age of 44 and 15 years later I miss him more than ever. My point is that I have never had the chance to get my closure. I still don't get it and I would love to have somebody to blame. I guess that the father in our story realized that there was more satisfaction in the fact that he could live with the notion of the killer being there, in his cell, aware of his crime and of a grieving family. Some people need to have this back-up idea to hang on to at moments of dispair. The father can change his mind, can't he? He could decide to kill him. The fact that he is the one in charge of that choice probably helps him to cope with his grief. And maybe his relationship to all other family members and the memory of his son will change now that he can take matters in his own hands. I don't know whether I have managed to make myself clear. Revenge is a very complex issue and hatred is an emotion even more complex than love. The way the father deals with hatred and revenge is in my opinion worth recognition and respect.

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Hello Yasmina and the board
    
     I understand we can hardly accept the loss of our close ties and that's when most of us begin to see what we saw on television or heard about somebody's death, the time we learn that somebody we even didn't know is no longer alive is true and is a reality of our world. This sense of feeling is heavy and we always seek confort or, in your words, "back-up idea to hang on to at moments of despair". We sometimes feel better simply with the idea that it would have been worse or whatever than that it is now, but in my opinion we'd learn to look at emotions which keep us alive and strong. The time and energy the father spent planning to kill the killer if transformed into love to the rest members of the family would have been better for his mind.
    
     Another aspect of this story is the biased story telling where the narrator simpaphise with the father (or they are the same) leading us to think the future for the father can be different (if I understood your last post) but if you well remember we've learned not to rely on a narrator when discussing the works of Romesh last year, beacuse we saw if we shift him (the narrator) the characters are affected and the undestanding of the story can change, that's why I concentrate on what the father's doing to bring my comment.
    
     The father has really made the best choice not to kill, but that his relantionship with other will change is another story! That is the future we humans were not given the gift to know . The future is always uncertain!
    
     Langa

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Hi, Jose Antonio, and everyone, I couldn't agree more!
     The father is an example of courage and intelligence....What he did as I said before was making the murderer think and obviously HE (the murderer) would never live in peace, in other words, it was about the same if he were really killed.
    
     The father's values and the love for his family and God were stronger than anything.

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Hi all
    
     I've been reading your comments and I think it's really fascinating to see how we all see things in different ways.
    
     What called my attention was the change in the pronoun - all the time the father refers to the murderer as 'it' just to come to the end and say,
    
     ' HE won't rest in peace...HE is gonna wake in a bit of sweat now and then, and turn to find me lying there beside HIM.' (my emphasis)
    
     What has prompted this change? I don't think there is redeemption in this story, I don't think anybody has been forgiven, I don't think any of the characters has fundamentally changed, but somehow change is there - even if it is elusive.
    
     I just wonder what 'visiting time' really means - who is actully been visited?? Is it the murderer? Or is it the father's own feelings, reactions and memories which are revisited each time he faces his son's killer??
    
     Cheers- Chris

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