Editor's Pick: "Bewilderment" by Franz Jørgen Neumann
Evelyn Griffith, Editor-in-Chief at Barely South Review, discusses her favorite piece the magazine published in the past year.
Welcome to Editor’s Pick, where I ask a lit mag editor to select one of their favorite pieces published in their magazine in the past year and talk about it. Today’s guest editor is Evelyn Griffith, Editor-in-Chief at Barely South Review. The piece Evelyn chose is “Bewilderment” by Franz Jørgen Neumann.
How would you describe this story in a few sentences?
This story is about a woman who has recently been divorced by her husband, and it goes through her life as she’s trying to figure out why he divorced her. It’s centered in her mindscape as she’s working through the grief of her divorce but also trying to figure out why it happened. It sounds very sad, and it is sad, but it’s actually quite humorous, and very, very honest, which is what I liked about it.
Divorce is pretty common material in submissions. What made this story stand out to you?
So, when a piece comes in, our readers are the first ones who screen it, and they say yes or no. If it’s a no, nobody else reads it. But if it’s a yes, then it goes up to my senior editor team—the fiction editor, in this case—and they read it. If the fiction editor says, “wow, this is really good,” then I read it. So, this piece had to go through two rounds before it even got to me.
What really struck me about it was the very clear use of sentences. They were not overly flowery, but there was a beauty in the simplicity of them, because they were clear and concise, and they lent themselves really well to the mindscape of this particular narrator.
The second thing that really stood out to me was the passage of time. Within the first page or so, there’s quite a drastic time skip. In the first scene, you’re in the dining room with this couple, and the man is holding a pen, and he doesn’t even say that he wants a divorce, it’s just him holding a pen and her fretting over seeing the divorce papers. Then, within a sentence, the house has been sold, the divorce is already done, and the woman has moved on to the next phase of her life. What struck me was how it jumped over all of the things that most people focus on, which is the bloody, messy part of the divorce itself. This author was able to make this incredibly interesting story without actually touching on the most dramatic parts.
Where did this story first hook your attention and why?
I think what struck me about the first page or so was that this narrator, the things that she’s thinking about, are kind of absurd. When she realizes that he wants the divorce, the first thing she says is, “Is it the cruise? We don’t have to go to Alaska.” And then there’s this moment where she starts massaging his shoulders, and she thinks it feels like kneading meat. And I just thought, this is such a strange human. So, within the first couple of paragraphs, I was already hooked onto this person’s psyche, because she was just so odd.
How is craft being used effectively in this piece?
What I think really works in this piece is how distinct everything is, including the imagery itself—that things don’t feel contrived, but like they actually happened to this person. When I’m reading fiction, what I like to see is specificity that makes me feel like I’m reading nonfiction because it’s so specific and crazy and weird. For instance, her husband masturbating with his trumpet was the most bizarre detail I have ever heard. But I also don’t doubt a kid would do that, because it’s so specific and clear. And so, I think the distinctness of imagery and detail and also the flow into and out of those kinds of details was masterfully done.
What makes the ending work?
I love this ending. This might be my favorite ending that I have received from submissions. First of all, it’s memorable. I did not expect there to be manatees in the canal, and I didn’t expect Roscoe to ever come and knock on her door for any reason, because the pattern throughout the story had been that he has his own life now. He’s not really interested in interacting with her. Even at the meeting that their little town has, he deliberately chooses a seat where she can’t sit next to him. So, to have the pattern be broken with Roscoe coming to her door was very interesting.
And then the reason that he brought her to the canal was to see these manatees, that was also surprising, because—perhaps I’m a little morbid—but I expected somebody to have found the body of the kayaker who had gone missing (which we never hear about, by the way), but that’s what I had expected. So, to see this kind of beautiful, natural thing happen, I thought was really interesting and memorable. And then I also really liked that it wasn’t wrapping anything up in a bow. It wasn’t a clean ending, but it felt like it was an ending that had meaning.
I also really liked that there was the line about her dropping her hand back down so that if Roscoe wanted to take her hand, he could. I thought that was a really smart move, because throughout all of this, she hasn’t really changed all that much as an individual. And I liked that all the way to the end, the author kept her consistent. In stories like this, it’s very easy to say, “okay, well, the main character needs to get over their divorce by the end.” But this author said, “no, this doesn’t need to be a story where she ultimately finds character growth,” and I appreciated that that was carried through almost to the very last sentence.
How do you interpret the ending? Do you think there’s hope for her and Roscoe?
I do not think that they will get back together. I think that perhaps they will become fond of each other again, but I don’t think that they will ever get married again. Not because she wouldn’t allow it, but because he seems to have moved on, and that’s the whole point. His reason for the divorce is it “just felt like time.” So, to me, that speaks to more than what the ending offers. However, I do think that they will perhaps become friendly.
It does offer a bit of heartwarming-ness at the end, because throughout all of this, it’s been a very lonely, sort of cold story that lacks any form of current love. Even her daughter is kind of ambivalent to her pain, and so, in the end, while it still shows that she desires more than what she has, it’s also kind of a balm to soothe the difficulty that the story has presented.
How did your team decide to publish this story?
This piece was kind of a no-brainer for us, because we had decided that our theme for that issue was going to be loss. And so, this story was just so well-situated in that theme that it seemed silly to not accept it when it’s already so good.
A lot of times in our magazine, we will accept pieces and not be sure where we’re going to place them, because we have a print magazine, and then we have our online issue, and then we have our pre-issue. The online issue and the print issue are the same, but in our pre-issue, we’ll include pieces that we really liked, but that we just didn’t feel had a place in our print magazine as a collection. We also have to think about page count since we’re a university-based print magazine and we only have so much budget for printing.
But what I usually do is I say, “okay, what are the things that we have collectively liked? What are the things that we feel drawn towards?” And then we’ll start getting a couple pieces. So, for example, this next issue, we’ve already accepted two poems, and we’ve accepted nothing else so far. And so, if I was going to build a theme, I might say, “okay, well, we have these two poems,” and then say a nonfiction piece came in that we really liked, then I might start connecting themes between the pieces. Then I might say, “okay, maybe if we get another piece that has the same theme, then we’ll go with that.” But I’ve found that letting people submit the work they’re excited about (without a set theme in advance) yields a better crop.
What’s one important thing writers can take away from this story to strengthen their own work?
Clarity comes first. Always edit toward the clearest image, the clearest sentence, because that’s going to get you on the same page with more readers.
About Barely South Review
Open to submissions until April 1, 2026
Affiliated with the Old Dominion University MFA program
Accepts fiction (genre and literary), flash fiction, nonfiction, flash nonfiction, and poetry
Acceptance rate: .01% (per Evelyn) | 3.62% (per Chill Subs)
Receives 1,000 to 1,200 submissions per year
Just added a paid editorial feedback option ($25)
Currently looking for volunteer readers - email Evelyn at managingeditor@barelysouthreview.com if interested
Such an interesting interview! I can’t wait to read the story. So much insight here into the crafting of an original story
onto a topic that can easily become tiresome if not approached with fresh eyes. Thanks for this.
Great interview, thank you! I like the point about simplicity. It's true in music too--as a new drummer I tried too hard, added a lot of fills. With more confidence and experience, I find a simple beat often serves the song best.
Enjoyed the story too. My favorite line, that sort of sums up loss in general of a partner: "What was she to do with all the trivia of his life, especially the most embarrassing bits?"