New Plans for Our New Lives by Matt Rittenhouse, reviewed by Brian Kornell What can be bad for life, can be great for fiction. The four friends, Jimmy, Barry, Harriet and the unnamed narrator, mapping out with pencils and paper how they want to change their lives in Matt Rittenhouse’s story, "New Plans of Our New Lives," fall into this category. The word "plans" suggests order, goals and, most importantly for the story, hope. The story is only about five hundred words long and Rittenhouse does an amazing job of using every sentence, word or detail to convey character, history or desire. At the beginning, the narrator puts on a cold, tough act, claiming, "[t]here is no emotion present in our schematics." Using schematics reinforces a sense of detachment from the process. Rittenhouse immediately undercuts this sentiment in the next sentence when Jimmy wants to include his martial strife in his plan, the narrator says, "...but we thought (knowing his wife) that their episode would be a short one, and in the long run, inconsequential." This is a good example of how Rittenhouse uses one sentence to convey multiple pieces of information. Jimmy wanting to include his wife in his plan, not only injects emotion into the situation, but it clues the reader into the history of the characters, they know each other quite well. This is also the first place where a sense of routine starts to slip into the story. It is very easy to imagine these people gathering in a bar or someone’s house on a regular basis to plot out new directions for their lives. The title alone points to evidence of this being a repeated activity for them, they are making new plans, perhaps to replace the previously failed ones. Rittenhouse reinforces this when the narrator says, "Barry, according to schedule, made his with a cyclical sense of brutality." Rittenhouse is able to develop the characters and their relationships, so they aren’t one- dimensional stick figures. Barry wanting his friends to know he’s read books on theory and Jimmy’s "grey-black scribble plan" imbue them with unique personalities. Harriet’s plan has "references to domesticity, and some fellow named Barbary, as if that was a real name of some real person she has written newly into her plan." The narrator’s tone of alternating jealousy and disgust effectively gestures towards a history between the narrator and Harriet. The strongest point of the story is the dry, sarcastic voice of the narrator. His voice keeps the story from going into sappy territory. Towards the end of the story, the narrator explains when they get drunk, "we put thing which are not hats, on our heads as hat." This is an excellent metaphor for the plans the characters are making. Their scheming is make believe, not a way to change their situation. The narrator even discusses what he and his friends would look like through a movie camera lens. By the end, the narrator has dropped his detached performance and any hope implied by the plan making is gone. The story is better for it. Rittenhouse achieves a great deal in character and pacing, but it is the narrator’s voice that pushes and pulls the narrative in directions that create a compelling and complicated story. All content in SmokeLong Quarterly copyright 2003-2008 by its authors.