Not Everything Gone is Forever

Stephen Dixon’s 1990 short story “All Gone” tells the story of how the murder of Eliot Shulter affects his friend, Maria Pierce. A criminal act frequently affects more than the immediate victim. Dixon illustrates that there is more than one victim in the murder of Maria’s friend Eliot. Maria endures numerous changes after the death of Eliot. Although Maria’s life initially evolves from one of despair to one of vengeance, she embraces new possibilities because of Eliot’s death.
Maria is inconsolable when a police officer tells her Eliot’s fate, “According to this elderly witness, he was supposedly thrown on the subway tracks this morning and killed” (Roberts & Jacobs 597). Maria’s reaction is characteristic of a person receiving the news of the sudden death of a young, loved one. A World Wide Web article written by Eli Birnbaum tells the reader, “But, there is another kind of death – the kind that hits us when we are unprepared, that kicks us in the gut a...