Short Story Review || A Stranger Knocks (2024)
"A young couple welcome a strange visitor while house-sitting & cannot refuse him his business proposition."
: 🌕 : SPOILER ALERT : 🌕 :
The tragic case of misunderstanding the intention or unspoken rule of corporeal engagement leads to a very unfortunate sway of missteps. Trite as it may seem, one must afford oneself the nerve to ask questions when one finds oneself without the answer they require. Should no fortitude exist in their person, they may be altogether ravaged by the simple void that consumes the dance required of them by existing.
“It will catch fire on a whim. It will kill you with gas even as you try to put out the flames. It wants to burn.”
Coming upon this story, I felt much of the way I mentioned above. I have previously tried reading two of Due’s novels & on both occasions, found myself staring at my ceiling in wonder that such praise should go undeserved.
With plots that seem completely capable of conveying the formidable intricacies of human experiences throughout the ages, it would stand to reason that the author has no work cut out for them, the meal has been served, they need only shovel the food into their gullet. Yet, Due never seems to pay close enough attention to the feast to grasp the tendrils that remain in the meat of her meals.
This short story is the perfect example of a lack of fortitude, a lack of talent, & something akin to a casual expectation that the bare minimum would suffice to garner compliments. You may wonder why I feel so strongly & why, after the third time, I have not simply moved on to a story better suited for me. I may kindly accuse you of missing the point in reading & reviewing entirely, but I will not. Instead, the following will dictate my reasoning.
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I agree to an extent, on the third time encountering a facet of existence that is not producing the desired outcome, one might take the hint & try something different. With stories, one is offered the opportunity of range & diversity that is difficult to capture in the tandem of habitual gallivanting. When reflecting on the two novels that I read to the halfway point only to abandon to the flames, I recall the eagerness that accompanied my attempts.
Due is regarded as a talent in the horror genre. Her stories are prized as tremendous feats representing an experience that nestles tremendously in the scaling hearts of those who adore terror or for whom the unspoken torment of life has ripened them for haunts. Ironically, these very descriptions resemble me quite accurately & yet the stories I tried to read were void of any girth, opioids where red blood cells could fester addictively, empty of any actual substance.
I regal the review with these reflections because my comments remain true for my experience with this story. While the characters appear unsuspecting of the terrible features of humanity, they welcome a strange man into the house they are watching while the owner wanders European cities in the hopes of making his final days on earth worthwhile. The stranger, Cartier, wishes for the young couple to drive him to cinemas for the screening of his film. He promises to pay them both for the use of the vehicle, which is not theirs, & for their time.
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Readers will note the swallow of the gullet that opens wide by mere mention of so much uncertainty. Due has not written for readers who might long for a profound understanding of her characters or the environment. Why would the friend allow the young couple to drive a complete stranger around the country? Why would the young couple trust a complete stranger? What part of their reality shaped them to be so trusting of a person who had yet to prove themselves trustworthy?
The situation at play here adds an odd layer to reality, which might otherwise be accompanied by a large-scale amount of negative judgment. The young couple is Black; the stranger is White-passing; the cinema is playing movies for Black audiences; this is the 1920s in the United States of America. What part of this situation makes sense?
The couple suddenly endows Cartier with their trust because he tells them that his grandmother is Haitian. Suddenly, they need not worry that a random man has come to the house they are meant to be watching, attempting to entice them to accompany him on a wild goose chase. Why would they do this?
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There are so many profound comments that could accompany reflection on this situation in particular & the absence of such reflection highlights a maw in the author’s planning. In the 1920s, were people casually trusting of one another? So few years after WWI, did the United States suddenly view BIPOC as citizens who merited equality, equity, & access to human rights? Were the semantics of signs placed in windows & water fountains, pools & picnic benches suddenly scrapped?
The reality is that the couple would have had absolutely no reason to trust Cartier. During this time, the Ku Klux Klan saw a significant rise in their membership, clocking in at around 5 million in 1925. Perhaps Due sought to include a tinge of ironic disillusion to her story by giving Cartier the themed picture-show backdrop for his killing spree, as the rise in Ku Klux Klan membership was often attributed to the film by D.W. Griffith “The Birth of a Nation” (1915).
What readers will note is that there are small markers within this story that seem too shallow to become greater than what the author wished them to be. Perhaps she included them so that the reader could transplant their personal knowledge within the confines of the story, leading it to be interpreted as a great piece of literary extravaganza. In reality, the lack of structure of this story does not lend itself with any level of grace or forgiveness to the characters who suffer due to the ignorance that will persist in the majority of readers.
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Cartier’s physical transformation highlights a community issue that has long since been a subject of conversation within many groups. Readers may wonder whether Cartier’s skin pigmentation is meant to reflect the villainy of his actions when he is White-passing or whether one is meant to deduce that no one who had a legitimate connection to the identity they claim would ever act in so gruelling a manner. The author does not make clear what the purpose of Cartier’s skin tone is. Once again, the reader is meant to do the legwork.
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Supposing that what Cartier wanted to do was salivate over the petrified body of a Black person to support his claims, what would this mean in the context of the story? Are readers meant to conclude that Cartier did have a Haitian grandmother, or does he simply want to advocate for the segregation of Black people that ran rampant in the United States? Were his crimes so easy to commit because of the century or because he was practiced in performing his vampiric dance?
Certainly, one may note that Cartier had chosen easy victims. Rarely were crimes against Black people, citizens or otherwise, taken seriously. To this day, one will acknowledge the trance that has overtaken privileged galivanting in the night without fear of a flashlight secured to a gun.
Perhaps Cartier had no intention of ever halting his raving. Had the silent picture show been closed—which we know it was—he would never have had to change his pattern of behaviour, simply the location in which he murdered.
Here, perhaps, the reader has come to the ruby; Cartier is a man who understood the sociopolitical realities of his country. He bore witness to the revolts in cities like Harlem, where individuals created a schism to allow for the freedoms of the children they safeguarded against a world that sought to keep them alive to tend the fields they stole through genocide. Cartier’s position in this society was one of easy movement, free thought, unabashed dreams, & longings for whatever he desired.
Whether Cartier was a vampire, the likes of which resemble any number of classically debonair fiends, is up to the reader to decide. The story has given the reader so much freedom that it nearly undercuts the main characters who are faced with a demon in the flesh who resembles many of the men charged with the care of their home. Perhaps they could not differentiate a devil from a human man, or perhaps they no longer had the energy to try.
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Ultimately, the story does not allow readers true reflection. I have little confidence in a society of people who negate the very real efforts of destruction that exist deafeningly in their front yard but which they are selectively deaf to acknowledging. What provokes literary realities to be transcribed into the history books or the pillars of the society that may exist should we not ravage this one in-depth?
Due has not presented readers who remain quaintly unaware of their surroundings with the ability to gauge terror as it has always existed. By revoking the characters’ ability to act with forethought or any semblance of connection to the world of racialized violence in which they existed, their toils with the vampire appear trite, tired, & rather silly.
Too many questions remain that leave readers with no room to appreciate what part of Cartier would lend him the suave characteristics necessary to galivant in a world where a large portion of the population would not trust him on appearances alone.
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Where within the story is the terror so promised to me by the author who has staunchly chosen the ghoul of soft, jejune writing in place of crass tombs of truth? Had I no knowledge of the plight that exists in communities of people whom the state had previously deemed suds in a dry well of rot, this story would seem to me utterly pointless.
Why would anything like this have taken place? What was being shown on the screen? What did the melody of the organ sound like before the spooky scene played? Who were the audience members? What comfort did they seek in the theatre? Why did they trust their fellow man to lead them through the forest of a story which would see them killed by its end?
I tremble at the thought that the young couple would be so naïve as to trust the claim of identity that could not be validated but by the capitalist longing for the coin purse. I weep for the souls cast into darkness by the bearers of a promised land, swept clean by the cavern of their voracious malice. I maroon myself on the artifact that paints a picture soon to be buried in the rubble of a story penned without the courage necessary to tell it.
If you would like to read this story, please visit this link — « A Stranger Knocks » by Tananarive Due
C. 💌