The story. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/03/25/neighbors-fiction-zach-williams
The author's discussion of his story https://www.newyorker.com/books/this-week-in-fiction/zach-williams-03-25-24#intcid=_the-new-yorker-article-bottom-recirc_0ab1a5b2-c2fa-4e9d-841d-04965ce33958_text2vec1
A couple trying to rebound from an infidelity rent a house in an area not far from SF, known for its fog and remoteness. A neighbor's son, comes to visit and asks the husband to keep an eye on his elderly mother. Of course, something happens and our hero goes to investigate. While there, a strange, shadowy figure moves around him as he hovers over the body. Whenever our protagonist moves, so does shadowy figure. Eventually he calls the police in and the shadowy figure disappears.
I thought I had this figured out and that this shadowy figure was a metaphor for the unknown man his wife had had an affair with. But from this interview, I don't think the author meant anything that concrete.
6 comments:
For the many years that I subscribed toTHE NEW YORKER, stories about infidelity became a staple. Husbands cheating on their wives, wives cheating on their husbands, plenty of lies and evasions on both sides. The guys I know who cheated on their wives mostly had costly divorces and not-so-successful second marriages.
Kind of an odd story, I thought. I prefer stories that are not that amorphous. Give me a real ending, a solution. I guess that's why I like mysteries.
On the road and home this week, I finished the Elizabeth Strout collection, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE, and the collection of '50s noir by Gil Brewer, DEATH COMES LAST: The Rest of the 1950s.
I've got a new Crippen & Landru volume that arrived while we were away, THE SECRET OF THE POINTED TOWER by Pierre Very (1900-1960), a French writer I'd never heard of before. And I havae several collections on hold at the library - books by people George reviewed recently, Charles Ardai and Peter Tremayne, as well as George Pelecanos. We'll see.
I blow hot and cold on ambiguity in stories. Depending on my mood, I either lover or hate them and can never explain why.
I read the story and the author's discussion of it. I enjoyed the story, I liked the writing, but I wanted some kind of resolution about the appearance of the unidentified man and what it meant to him. I also did wonder about the relationship, so I guess I like more closure. I will read more of his short stories someday. They are coming out in a book but I am not going to get it immediately so it would be a while.
I like that New Yorker cover.
He had a story in the New Yorker, a year before. I am wondering if that had a similar ending. I also found it unsatisfying after much thought.
The intruder into the death scene is just dropped there without any cause or purpose, other than that the husband will not disclose his presence to his wife. Oh, an allegory. How not fascinating.
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