Alexa DePalma (AB)

Supermarket

Supermarket, written by Bobby Hall (or some may know him better as Logic), was originally published in March of 2019. The story focuses on the main character, Flynn, a twenty-something writer. He struggles with depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and multiple personality disorder. After a terrible break-up, Flynn spends days in his bed stuck in a funk. One day he decides to get a job and is determined to finish the novel he has been working on. He gets a job at the supermarket and uses the employees of Muldoon’s as his subjects for his novel. When Flynn meets Frank, he knew Frank would be the main subject and perfect character for his novel. Flynn spends weeks observing Frank, listening to his stories, and watching how he behaves. Although, one day he realizes that most of what Frank says is a lie. Flynn decides to keep believing Frank so he can write about him in his novel. Flynn’s world is turned upside down when he arrives at a crime scene at Muldoon’s. The store is a disaster. Someone had broken in at night and destroyed everything and stole from the cash register. Flynn cannot believe what he is seeing. It perfectly matches up with what he wrote in his novel the night before. Then it clicks. “Frank” did this. But Frank is not real. Flynn broke into the store the night before acting as Frank. Everything starts to make sense to Flynn. Frank was never real. Flynn is Frank.

So, this is how it feels to take a man’s life. Forced to kill for one’s own survival. I looked down at a puddle of blood by my feet, locking eyes with my own reflection. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead. How’d I get here? I was just a dude who worked at the grocery store. Now here I was, standing over a man I murdered.
(Hall, 3)

My “reading for” is for the mimetic and thematic registers. I read for both the experience and to understand the meaning of the novel. My “reading for” for Supermarket was to understand the mind of Flynn and find out what drove him to commit murder. Who did he kill? Why did he kill them? As he asked himself, how did he get there? From the very first few pages, I already had so many questions I wanted to be answered. Throughout the story, we learn that Frank is just someone Flynn made up in his mind in order to finish his novel. There is a ton of foreshadowing when Flynn states that he cannot believe anything Frank says and knows nothing he says is real or true. As my fellow group member, Venesa, pointed out, Flynn and Frank will have conversations but Frank always disappears when someone else shows up. Flynn convinces himself that Frank is real in order to finish his novel and immerses himself so much into his work that he loses touch with reality and cannot decipher what is real or fake.

As Robert McKee states in his book Story, a premise is an open-ended question. What is the idea that inspired Bobby Hall’s desire to create this story? The first premise that came to mind was “What would happen if a writer completely immersed themselves in their work?” Flynn is determined to finish this novel. His ex-girlfriend, Lola, told him he can never finish anything: “You start amazing idea after amazing idea, but you never finish anything… and that’s why I…why I’m finishing this” (Hall, 35). Flynn’s mom threatens to kick him out of the house if he doesn’t get up out of bed and start working on himself. Flynn receives an offer from someone to publish his novel, but he hasn’t finished yet. He gets a job at Muldoon’s and fully immerses himself in his writing to finally finish something.

“Just finish the book! No matter what happens, finish the book?” Repeating my mantra, I began to feel like I was being split in two. Like the old me was out of my body and this new me was here–present and yet not. I couldn’t control my thoughts or my body.
Hall, 51

What would happen if a writer completely immersed themselves in their work? My original premise was good but needed work. It did not capture the whole idea of what inspired Logic’s desire to create and tell this story. I had to dig deeper. A lot of the novel deals with serious issues about mental health. The whole novel is based on the main character’s struggle with mental health issues. So, what would happen if someone struggling with mental disorders dealt with his problems head-on? This premise can help readers understand Logic’s desire to write a story like this one. In interviews and his music, he opens up about dealing with depression and anxiety. He talks, writes, and sings about his own experiences and the experiences of others around him. These real-life experiences played a huge part in the creation of Supermarket.

So here I am with two different premises. What would happen if a writer completely immersed themselves in their work? And What would happen if someone struggling with mental disorders dealt with his problems head-on? How can I combine the two to come up with the ultimate premise of Supermarket? Readers know that Flynn doesn’t take any medication when in the psychiatric hospital. He goes through different types of therapy, but nothing helps him rid the demons inside. What finally helps him kill the demons that Flynn is facing is by dealing with the issue head-on. Although he knows Frank is not real and something he made up, he trains himself to believe Frank is real in order to face him and kill him. This idea is what led me to my second premise. So, how can I combine the two to come up with a final premise? Here is what I came up with: What would happen if a man struggling with mental disorders created a whole new reality in order to completely immerse himself in his novel in order to finish it?

McKee describes the controlling idea as the story’s ultimate meaning expressed through the action and aesthetic emotion of the last act’s climax (McKee, 112). It should describe how and why life undergoes change from one condition of existence at the beginning to another at the end (McKee, 115). We must look at the last act’s climax to find the controlling idea. This climax occurs when Flynn reflects on the life he has lived during a near-death experience:

I was then lifted up from my body. From high above I peered down onto my dying self. Suspended in time. At that moment, out of my body, I felt like I could see everything. Not just the entire store below me, but my entire life. The past, the present, the future. I felt embraced by a kind of tranquil serenity. Was this what death felt like? As soon as the moment came, it went, and I was shot back into my corporeal self. My entire frame was reanimated. I groggily lifted my head from the ground. I felt sublime, lucid, crystal clear. I felt terrified and torn. Happy and ecstatic all at once.
Hall, 266

Flynn is trying to get rid of Frank, kill him once and for all. He asks himself: How do you kill a man who doesn’t exist? A man who only lives in his head. Flynn is trying to kill Frank but is only causing harm to himself. Frank is torturing Flynn, causing Flynn a battle with his inner self. As a fellow group member, Rachel, commented, Flynn’s imagination told Flynn how to fight Flynn’s other imaginary personality. He needs to make the decision. To finally rid himself of this inner demon. Frank was laying on the ground in a puddle of blood, taking his final breath. Flynn stood above him finally free from the demon that he had been battling for so long. Frank was no longer in control. Flynn wins. He is finally able to defeat the demon within his head. Frank no longer controls Flynn’s thoughts or actions. Frank finally loses this long battle. Speaking of control…

I took to the last act’s climax to find the controlling idea of Supermarket. Flynn is the supermarket trying to finally rid himself of Frank once and for all. The pills Flynn had been holding onto in his pocket slipped out all onto the floor. Frank slipped on the pills and hit his head meaning Flynn slipped on the pills and hit his head. The fall caused extreme head trauma, the chemicals in his brain balanced out in real-time: “Frank was dead, and I was sane in the supermarket” (Hall, 267). The controlling idea of Supermarket is getting rid of your own demons leads to sanity. The counter idea is letting your demons control you will lead to further insanity and no way out. Flynn must fully believe that Frank is a real person. Although he knows he is only a made-up person in his mind, Flynn has to truly believe in Frank and everything he is saying. Flynn must not only want to get rid of his demons but commit to actually doing so. Flynn had to convince himself to be someone who is not afraid to kill. He had to convince himself that Frank was real and he had to murder Frank in order to be set free.

Think about it. You can do anything you want in life. It just takes persistence, determination, realism, and wanting success more than your next breath. Whatever you want in life you can attain. As long as you believe it. As long as you say you’re going to do it!
Hall, 21

In the end, Flynn is finally able to get rid of Frank. Frank, the one who has been controlling him to do unimaginable things and ruin his sanity. Flynn was able to do this on his own, in a way that he figured out himself. No advice from a therapist or medicine helped Flynn finally get rid of Frank. Flynn says he is finally sane once Frank is dead. This idea wins. The counter idea of letting your demons control you will lead to further insanity and no way out does not win. Flynn doesn’t let Frank win. He no longer wants Frank in control of his own thoughts and actions. If he were to let Frank stay, Flynn would go down a dark path with no way out.

Bobby Hall took his readers on a rollercoaster ride of emotions throughout Supermarket, trying to understand the mind of Flynn and realizing what was real or fake. The novel was unlike any other story I have read before. I enjoyed stepping out of my comfort zone. I usually reach for more young adult romance novels. While Supermarket did include romance, that was not at the top of the list for its genre.

By the Bridge

It is necessary to introduce this next text in order to determine the importance of the genre of a text. Jane Gallop wrote about her method on close reading in The Ethics of Reading: Close Encounters, presenting the essence of genre:

“Equally rare is the text which completely follows the rules of a genre: even the most conventional will usually display some individual expressivity, some originality in its details. A text generally engages the expectations of genre and also varies from or even breaks those expectations, combining the surprising and the familiar.”
Gallop, 11-12

Suspense, dark comedy, thriller, psychological thriller. That is what comes up when you look up the genre for Supermarket. While I agree with the first two, I don’t believe that “thriller” truly fits this book. “Psychological” fits the main character, Flynn, well. As we know, Flynn struggles with mental illnesses, depression, and anxiety. In blog two for Supermarket, written by Jay, she pointed out that thrillers tend to create a sense of uneasiness. While I never felt uneasy reading this novel, I would say that Flynn did. He was always anxious or uncomfortable.

“Close reading means looking at what is actually on the page, reading the text itself, rather than some idea “behind the text.” It means noticing things in the writing, things in the writing that stand out” (Gallop, 7). Jay also pointed out that Supermarket is a novel wearing a movie’s skin. Some elements of the novel were similar to the elements of a movie. Bobby Hall acted as the director of Supermarket. One part of the novel that reminded me of a movie is found on pages 11 and 12, “It really annoyed me how happy he was. His whole vibe bothered me. I have no idea what overcame me, but I snapped and punched him in the face. My fist connected with his nose, and blood spewed from the slit created by the explosive blow…Seconds later I was sitting in an old wooden chair in Ted’s office. Ted sat behind his desk. His nose was perfectly fine.” Just how in movies an actor may picture a scenario in their head that is shown on the screen, Logic wrote a scenario that Flynn pictured that never really happened. This is different from a lot of books I have read. Logic is known for his cinematic storytelling so this type of writing makes sense for him.

Vacation From Myself

It is important to understand the relationship between texts. Kaja Silverman wrote The Subject of Semiotics as a guide for semiotic theory. She talks about Roland Barthes’ five different codes: semic, hermeneutic, proairetic, symbolic, and cultural codes. These codes allow the text to transform from a “readerly” text to a “writerly” text. Bobby Hall has several cultural codes within Supermarket that help transform the novel.

Good vs. evil. Controlling vs. controlled. Conscious vs. unconscious. Real vs. fake. Dreams vs. reality. These symbolic codes point towards cultural codes, some provided by Venesa in blog 3, which are embedded within the novel. The readers are aware of these codes, sometimes, and they can be relevant to their life in some way. Flynn is the good one and the one being controlled. Frank, being the evil one and the controller. Flynn struggles with these oppositions throughout the story. Not only does he struggle with being controlled by Frank, but he also struggles with knowing what is real vs. fake, or knowing what was a dream vs. reality. Frank is a made-up person that Flynn believed to be real. He was so determined to write his novel and finish it that he made up this main character in his head that he believed in so much and let it control him. At that point, Flynn struggled with knowing what was real or what was all made up in his head.

I had been Frank all along. I was Frank. Frank was me. I made Frank up and made him real in my own head. He was a complete illusion, a hallucination, an apparition.
Hall, 155

Dreams vs. reality. Flynn had dreamt up this almost alternate universe/reality inside his mind in order to finish his novel. His biggest dream/aspiration was to finish the novel, prove his ex-girlfriend wrong that he actually can finish things, and finally have it published. His determination and aspirations led Flynn to do unbelievable things. Creating characters in his mind that he perceived as real. We all have dreams. We dream to have the perfect job, perfect family, perfect life. We dream to travel or write a song or write a book, like Flynn. We’ve all had dreams but how many of us have lost touch with reality to fulfill our dreams? Conscious vs. unconscious. When Flynn is dreaming of this life with Frank and everything he does he is unconscious. When Flynn is conscious is when reality sets in and Flynn knows Frank is made up and everything Frank had done was actually just Flynn.

In blog 3, by Venesa, she suggests an opposing controlling value: reaching out to others for help allows one to live a healthy and happy life. The counter idea being: refusing help from others leads to insanity.

I thought about how I’d been running from Frank, telling myself he wasn’t real. And the denial of his influence had given him the advantage. It made him stronger. But now I knew the truth—Frank’s existence had real-life implications. He was real. Maybe not flesh and blood, but real in my mind. He had a distinct personhood in my head. By denying his existence, I hadn’t been able to get rid of him because … I had no way to fight him. Until now.
Hall, 193

Flynn reached out to Red for help. Although Red was another person made up in Flynn’s head, Flynn still reached out for help and was able to discover a way to kill Frank. Flynn also reached out to Mia for help. Mia was going to drive Flynn to the supermarket to meet Frank. If Flynn had not reached out for help, he would be refusing help and leading himself to further insanity. Frank would still be in control. Mia would leave Flynn for good.

A second network of controlling and counter values provided by Venesa is following your dreams leads to fulfillment and success vs. accomplishing nothing leads to emptiness.

“What book?” I asked. “Muldoon’s, dummy. The book you wrote. The entire reason you’re in this place to begin with!” In all this time, taking everything in, I forgot the whole reason I was in here! For pushing myself to my breaking point to finish a novel. And I succeeded…
Hall, 178-179

Although Flynn pushed himself to his breaking point and drove himself insane to finish his novel, he still finished it and it was published. He followed his dreams and succeeded. Had Flynn not finished the novel, he would not have something to feel proud of or a reason to keep going. He would still feel empty.

I Love You Forever

James Seitz in Rebirth of Rhetoric describes the role “the capable reader” may play. This role is created by the reader in order to submit to the role the text wants or projects its reader to play. Readers may also resist the text meaning resisting the role the text wanted or projected its reader to play. The question is: How does one go from complete willingness to take up the role projected by the text to resist any such projected role to play? How does one begin to resist a role that you have already submitted to? This question leads us to assume three principle “characters”: a narrator, the narrator’s addressee, and the reader reading the relationship between the two.

In blog 4, Rachel suggests two different roles that the narrative audience was asked to play: the detective and the madman. I couldn’t agree more. From the beginning, I had questions a detective may use to solve the mystery: Who did Flynn kill? Why did he kill them? As he asked himself, how did he get there? Not only did I have the questions but I also wanted to understand the mind of Flynn. I wanted to understand why he did certain things or reacted certain ways or said the things he did. This is where the role of “madman” or just someone who is insane would come into play. Taking on the perspective of someone struggling with several mental illnesses. As the audience, these are the roles we are projected to play. In order to fulfill these projected roles, the readers must submit to the roles projected to them. We must become the detective or become the madman. Asking the right questions to solve the mystery or overthinking, driving yourself insane, being so determined to accomplish something. We must do these things and submit to these roles in order to fulfill the roles projected by the text.

Rabinowitz defines four audiences: actual audience, authorial audience, narrative, and ideal narrative audiences. The actual audience is real. The narrator has no control over this audience. The authorial audience is familiar with the suspenseful, dark comedy, psychological genre. They may also be familiar with Bobby Hall, Logic, and his music. The narrative audience trusts the narrator and what they are saying but may question him or resist the text. Finally, the ideal narrative audience believes everything the narrator is telling them no matter what. (Rabinowitz, 126-127 & 134)

The ideal narrative audience is reading and hanging onto every word Flynn is telling them. If Frank is actually talking to Flynn, going on dates with Rachel, smoking on the roof of the supermarket, then the ideal narrative audience believes that is what really is happening. As the ideal narrative audience, we believe in this character Frank. We believe that he is just this wild friend of Flynn’s that has now become the subject of his novel. The narrative audience may have trusted Hall at first but began to question him and resist the text once they caught on. The narrative audience may become skeptical of the narrator and become resistant.

Ever since I met him, Frank had droned on and on about himself, telling me about the girls he’d been with. His pseudophilosophies and his take on life. I’d been fascinated by the sharp edges of his personality. So fascinated that I had based my book on him. But this entire time he had just been another phony. Frank wasn’t real like he claimed to be. He was a liar, and a goddamn good one.
Hall, 91

Frank was a liar. Nothing Frank ever said was true. This is when it clicked for me. Frank is definitely not real. Whenever Frank is around, it is only him and Flynn. No one has ever talked to Frank or interacted with him besides Flynn. The character Rachel is an exception until we learn further on in the story that Rachel just played along calling Flynn “Frank” during their secret rendezvous. As the audience, I began to resist the role I was projected to play. I could no longer rely on Flynn. He was no longer a trustworthy or dependable narrator. I began to question everything. Is this actually happening? Is this all made up?

From then on, it was hard to trust anything the narrator said. If Frank was made up, who else was made up too? While most other characters were real, so the audience is meant to believe, we learn that Flynn’s dog and Red were more made-up people in Flynn’s mind. Flynn seemed to create these characters inside of his mind in order to help him deal or cope with different situations. Frank helped him finish his novel. The dog helped him with his depression, anxiety, loneliness. Red helped him defeat Frank.

So, who was Flynn trying to address through his narration? Was this person real? Was his ideal addressee someone who would believe everything he said as much as he believed it? This is tough to answer. Many times the narrator breaks the fourth wall. “Well damn, hold on a second, maybe I shouldn’t bring up the fact that you’re reading a book” (Hall, 8). Flynn knows that he is addressing his actual readers in real time. But other times he is detached from reality and unaware. In the end, I think Flynn is trying to address those like him. Anyone who may be struggling with mental illnesses, anyone stuck in a rut, anyone lost or alone, anyone struggling to finish anything, anyone lacking motivation, anyone who will listen. Is he looking for someone who may understand his mind, the way it works, etc.? Flynn is addressing anyone who may listen. In the end, Flynn wins. He escapes the demons trying to control and ruin his life. The ending can give hope to his readers that although times may be tough and it may seem like there is no way out of this dark time, there is light at the end of the tunnel. You can survive. You will survive. Don’t give up.

Final Reflection

After the first day of our virtual class, I was nervous. I began to doubt myself. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to keep up or even grasp the idea and assignments of this class. As an education major surrounded by a bunch of writing majors, I was scared. I will admit, I am not a big reader. I do not usually read in my free time. I will read a book if someone recommends it or if I am sitting on the beach, but that is really the extent of my leisure reading activities. I understand the importance of reading and plan on teaching about the importance of reading to my future students. But how can I encourage my students to do something that I don’t practice myself?

Fortunately, this class has changed my thoughts and feelings about reading. Although we read these books for assignments, it didn’t feel that way. Being able to read beyond just reading because “I have to” or reading to see how the story ends, we learned so many different methods that will help us grow as both readers and writers. I won’t lie, I didn’t understand everything that was talked about or discussed. There were times when I would wonder if I was the only one confused. I saw the progress of my classmates and groupmates and would at times feel discouraged. I knew that it was not fair to compare myself to anyone. We all learn and understand differently, some faster or better than others but that did not matter.

I found a lot of these methods very fascinating. Even if I did not understand them fully or grasp the idea completely, they still interested me. To start, the premise of a story. Of course, I knew premise meant an idea of something that is true. I have learned that the premise of a novel is an open-ended question that asks what inspired the writer to create this story. That is something I often wondered when I read any book. What is the whole point of this? What inspired this author to create a story such as this one? Why? Determining the premise of the five texts we read this semester was always difficult but extremely interesting and rewarding when we discovered the perfect one.

Along with the premise, we learned about graphing a narrative structure and controlling and counter ideas. A novel, a chapter, a page, or a paragraph can have a sequence of positive and negative events. The last act’s climax includes this sequence of positive and negative events. One idea wins in the end, positive or negative. The controlling value is the idea that wins. The counter idea is the one that loses. This is what I had the most fun with trying to figure out. What idea truly wins in the end?

I have learned that there are several different types of audiences. There is more than just the audience that reads the text. There are four different audiences. Each audience reads the story from a different perspective with different roles. Some audiences may be familiar with the genre. Some audiences may be familiar with the author. Some audiences may believe everything the narrator is telling them. Some audiences may believe in the narrator but be skeptical of some things and become a little resistant to the narrator. I never thought of being a resistant reader before this class. I never thought to resist the role we are projected to play as the reader and begin to question what is being said.

While I struggled with premise, values, narrative structures, and audience in the beginning of the semester, I think I finally began to grasp the idea towards the end of the semester. Intertextual codes and rhetoric of narrative are still difficult for me to fully get. Everything is a work in progress and I am proud of myself for continuing to work on these ideas/methods even if I am not fully grasping the full idea. I did not give up which is something to be proud of on its own. There are five different codes: semic, hermeneutic, proairetic, symbolic, and cultural. These codes allow the text to transform from a “readerly” text to a “writerly” one. The rhetoric of narrative discusses relationships between narrators and addressees.

Overall, taking How Writers Read was a learning experience. It was not easy but it was worth it. I have learned a lot from this class that I plan on taking with me throughout the rest of my time at Rowan University and with me inside of my future classroom one day. I believe that I have grown so much as both a reader and a writer after taking this class. I want to thank both Professor Kopp and John for being great mentors throughout this semester.

Works Cited