“This gap is also shown throughout Carver’s story in the multiple references to the ways in which a body can be protected or covered. There’s discussion about knights and the armor that they wear; a description of how beekeepers cover themselves; and Mel describes the casts on the elderly couple, with holes for their eyes and mouths. These devices serve to protect but also to inhibit the ability to connect. In Durbin’s story, this translates to Neal’s house, which is being renovated in order to appear on a reality television show. Lights are being installed; fake stars are painted on a ceiling; and blood is removed via varnish and stain. A world constructed, for television: a world that’s fake, where things are covered up rather than exposed, a house that is not really a home.”
—Laura Spence-Ash