The Vinyl Effect

by Rebecca McNutt

'The Vinyl Effect' is the short story of a twelve-year-old boy, Mark, who finds himself the lone survivor of a nuclear attack that hits the Pennsylvania small town he lives in during an assembly at his junior high school. As he relives his sad and bleak life through the nostalgia of super 8 home movies and Kodachrome photographs, he tries to seek out other survivors while dying from radiation poisoning in the town park, unaware of what's real and what are just hallucinations brought on by his illness.

26 pages, Paperback

First published April 8, 2015

Reviews

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's always nice when a Rebecca McNutt story arrives through the letterbox, even one as depressing as this one. I was prompted to read this post nuclear attack story after watching the 1965 film The War Game, directed by Peter Watkins.
The Vinyl Effect tells the story of a young boy who survives a nuclear attack and, after finding some film & old photographs, realises that these are his only reminder of the world of the past. It may be a sad subject, but it is well written & also includes a wide ranging list of films on the subject that the author recommends to watch.

[Luke Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a vivid swirl of atomic particles, Rebecca McNutt describes the solitary survivor of a nuclear catastrophe’s unravelling existence by contrasting the emptiness of what fads had been so rapaciously sought out by his peers with the hungry pang of longing for the simplistic natural beauty of what had been once considered mundane, as well as the character’s own hopeless attempt to capture the vibrancy of his life’s memories on film made obselete by the modern way. In the end, but one theme stains the page, and as do all of Ms. McNutt’s books, the thoughts of The Vinyl Effect radiate with a long half-life not to soon be forgotten, as the length of the story itself works to come to clarity the very moment it dissapears, much like a photograph succumbing to flames in the fireplace.

[Cindy Boogie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really sad little story, poor Mark is twelve years old and slowly dying, alone since his family and teachers were killed in an atomic blast. I cried almost the whole way through. :(

[Tawfek · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fallout story, were a young American boy is the only survivor of a nuclear bomb in his city, obviously he has no chance to survive.
The description of his surroundings after the nuclear attack was really good, even though it was way different than Barefoot Gen, Volume One: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima, it's like he saw no dead bodies where ever he went.
Was that due to the fact that Nuclear bombs have become bigger and more deadly than the initial ones thrown at these cities?
The scene with the falling White snow like particles, reminded me of a scene from a movie about the ashes of the burned dead victims of the holocaust when the Nazi Regime were getting rid of the evidence of what they did, for most of the story i thought it was the ashes of the dead too, but then the writer explained a different phenomena following a nuclear explosion

[Kenneth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant... looking forward to reading more from this author