Ken: I like this already. I was really drawn into it. I'll answer by addressing your questions in turn:

1)characters and scene interesting?: The dialogue is lively and real, and characters are not one-size fits all, (in spite of the fact that one has a brogue. That's a plus). I'm a sucker for all that Danny Boy stuff. Your toast to the "dear departed" reminds me of all of hubby's old jokes about "Three chairs for Marphy," but in a good way. (I am part Irish, and hubby thinks that's something special).

2)want to find out what happens to Bobby? Yes! For one thing, what really happened is not all spilled out in the first pages, so I'm alert that there's more to the story. Also the rest of the gathering is so affectionate to Bobby; so while he's undeveloped yet, those full-fledged characters are not to be forgotten. So if Karen and O'Reilly like him, by God!Bobby's a friend of mine. I think at some point, you should tell more about him.

3) do you see the scene playing out? Absolutely. If I close my eyes I'm there. You're a very aural writer - great dialogue - and I'm more visual, and I'd like to SEE more. Like, not just black clothing, but whether the coffin was in the room, and was it polished mahogany or cheap rough pine, (probably I know the answer to that already, but I'd like to see it painted there for me). Where there flowers? What room were they in? The meeting room of the church? Somebody's house? Were the mourners' shoes scuffed, and did they leave a trail of cigar ashes, and on what surface did they leave the rings from their dripping shot glasses? Was the door opened to scratching chickens? Were there charcoal clouds roiling in the sky?

Your writing left me hungry for more details.Maybe that's just me.Of course this is just the beginning.

I liked it a lot. That's the short of it.

Thanks for your kind words.

Irish? O, I wish I were Irish. Or Scottish. Or had a thick Southern American accent. I feel my Southern California upbringing was a sad sojourn in the land of bland, unless you count the multiple ways I can use the word "dude."

I've deliberately held back story information. I want you to meet the characters with as little interference as possible.

I despise prolixity, so I try to write as cleanly as possible so there's as little as possible to get in the way of communication with the reader. The danger is I could deprive the reader of necessary information or description that would aid the story.

I'm still learning and it's difficult work, but I love doing it, and it's the only thing I'm truly fit for, other than emptying spitoons at the whorehouse.

I was thinking of posting something I wrote today, to see whether I could get some brutally honest critiques. When I found this I thought I'd try to do it to you, to see what it was I'd be asking others to do. I'll tell you this is hard because criticism hurts. I will be honest, and try to point out what I like about it too.

1. Characters and scene.

Sort of like it. I have a problem with some of the dialog and the way he speaks in his head. The first sentence threw me, and I had to put it in words that I would use to say the same thing, only after I figured out what he was trying to say.

"All I remember that day is the feeling of being wrapped in a invisible cotton, except for my feet, which hurt because my new black shoes were too tight"

I changed it to this:

All I remember about that day is the feeling of being wrapped in invisible cotton, except for my feet, which hurt because my new black shoes were too tight.

(I would spend a lot more time on those first 3 or 4 lines. Rework everything because it didn't flow right in my head. I think it needs to have a really simple structure that's easy to read. [*** edited/deleted ***] When Faulkners "Benjy" was thinking, it was in italics. Since I don't have italics here either, I changed it a bit like this:

The day of Graces' funeral went by in a blur. I remember feeling like I was wrapped in invisible cotton, and wearing shoes that hurt my feet.

Pale faces came and went, framed in black, murmuring words of sympathy. I don't remember who was there or what I said to them.

Karen and O'Reilley were the last to leave. She stacked the dishes while O'Reilley opened the last bottle of good Scotch. They were always good at those things. I was going to miss them.

I watched O'Reilly pour our drinks and listened to Karen's heels on the wooden floor. "Time for that later love" He said, handing her a scotch. "For now we drink a wee toast."

Sorry Ken, I went a little beyond your 1,2,3. I'd go back over my version again too. It's a flow thing, but I don't really know how to describe it. You have a good image in your head of what's going on with these people, but I think you need to massage it some. I'm tripping over things and reading sentences twice.

2) Yeah, kinda. He's just lost his wife and packed his bags for texas. I'd like him to have more of a problem though, or the promise of a problem. How someone recovers from grief might not be a story I'd want to read. But that's just me, so don't let that get you down. If I knew he was heading into trouble, or had trouble following him, I'd be more interested. I threw that "I'm going to miss them" thing in to set up that I'm leaving this people behind.

3) Yes I do, but it took a while. I think I like it more now that I've worked on it a bit, which gave me time to imagine them.

Is this OK? Have I crossed a line? Don't let me change who you are. Write your way. I can spend days on one page and still hate what I've done with it.

Nah, we're cool. You did a great job. I gave you a "Helpful" kudo. Feedback on this level is what I'm looking for. I don't want fluff. If something doesn't work, I want to know about it. If that something is only a matter of taste between you and me, then I still want to know about it. Maybe your taste is better than mine.

If you enjoy something I wrote, I want to know that, too. When I know what works, I can keep doing it.

I won't promise I'll incorporate the changes a reviewer suggests (unless it's my editor at Random House working on the pre-release version of this.) But I consider everything reviewers say, tasting it all in my head and seeing if what they suggest will make the work better crafted, more clear.

ETA: TBD supports some HTML tags. You can get italics by surrounding your to-be-italicized text with < i > and < / i >. Just delete the extra spaces within the carats. You can do the same with Bold but not underline.

A question about your process: if in fact you are fortunate enough to have the services of a professional editor available to you (and you seem to be well into the process of work on a book to which the editor is committed) why would you seek the criticism of strangers? Was this a step your editor recommended? Or one that you've relied on in other projects? Please enlighten me. (I am, to date, more or less unpublished.)

Was Caddy the "mentally afflicted" characters name? The one who couldn't talk and just thought in unbroken strings of sentences? Nooo . . . Grrrrrrrr Darn I can't remember. Guess it's time for me to read it again! (for like the 8th time)

*** Nope just looked it up - Benjy! and literary types call it "stream of conscienceness" writing style ala james Joyce and Virgina Woolf. Anyway what I was trying to convey (while falling asleep at the keyboard last night) was that if you're going to try something like that, tighten it up, sperarate it from the others, and put it in one voice to begin with, and one character. Faulkner and Joyce were masters, (don't read anything into that Ken) and someone who hasn't established such a reputation might want to try getting there foot in the door with something fairly generic first. Stress characters. Strong characters will go a looong way, irrespective of plots or story lines. (There are only a few basic plots in 90% of all modern fiction anyway.)