A story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is.

It is the business of the artist to uncover the strangeness of truth

The grandmother didn't want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey's mind. Bailey was the son she liver with, her only boy.

Your criticism sounds to me as if you have read too many critical books and are too smart in an artificial, destructive, and very limited way.

The trees were full of silver-white sunlight and the meanest of them sparkled.

I am not afraid that the book will be controversial, I'm afraid it will not be controversial.

When you can state the theme of a story, when you can separate it from the story itself, then you can be sure the story is not a very good one.