Susan's upstairs, asleep," said Tink. "She's all I live for. Would you like to see her?"

I think that is the point at which he lost it, jealousy of her love for her child. The parallel with the angel story implies that to me.

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Okay, now that I'm home and have reread the story...

It can't be both?

It it is certainly possible for a story to be both. Given that this particular story is explicitly about justice and vengeance and jealousy and love and whether anyone but God can really be considered responsible for anything that happens as a result of His Divine and Mysterious plan... I feel like context matters.

Plus I think the ending is fairly ambiguous about retribution. He is narrating it from 10 years later, yes. We don't know where he is. The story he tells us ends with him confined in a small silver room, at peace, waiting for someone to let him out. Which is how Raguel's story began.

I believe his crimes are meant to be a disturbing revelation (so to speak) and to raise questions. I don't know how to address your concerns because I don't understand what they are. I don't mean that dismissively, just... I genuinely don't understand.

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Is anyone else following Jennifer Egan's "Black Box" on Twitter @NYerFiction. It's striking me after six tweets that I'm not caught up yet, and I have much less patience with not being caught up than I would on a page.

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If you're talking about love and death and murder and justice (which the story is), then there has to be love and death.

Part of the problem is, I don't think the parallel works the way it's set up. He's in LA by chance and didn't know she was there, and there's no sign, in his description of their encounter, of anything that would lead to murder. Now you can argue that he's remembering it wrong because of Raguel taking his memories, but

a) There's a point at which the narrator becomes so unreliable it's impossible to say what the story really is, and

b) That actually makes it worse, since now *all three* victims are reduced to objects we know nothing about. They're only there to produce an emotional reaction in the reader.

He is narrating it from 10 years later, yes. We don't know where he is.

Actually, he refers early on to a wife, children, and a vocation. So it sure looks to me like he got off scot-free.

Bottom line: a woman invites a man into her home and has a sexual encounter with him. As a result, she, her daughter, and a female friend are all corpses rotting in the ground, while the man is forgiven by literal divine fiat. And while I see DebetEsse's point about context and the need for parallels, I can't believe it was impossible to do that without dragging out the refrigerator.

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Oh, I don't think it qualifies as fridging, as it does not serve to give him something to react to (given that he doesn't remember it, and you can easily read the story and miss it entirely.). I also find it less disturbing and problematic than I would if he had, for example, beaten a girlfriend (to death or not) or stalked and raped someone. Triple homicide and necrophilia is far enough removed from what I can readily port into my own life that there isn't a hint of the "well, you should forgive him if he did it because he loves you" message that either of those would have.

But, then again, I think that the story posits that the concept of "love" that's hard-wired into the Universe is broken.

there's no sign, in his description of their encounter, of anything that would lead to murder

Not a pre-meditated murder, certainly.

(And I think Gaiman consistently lives right on that boundary for your point a. Like, he has a summer house there.)

But I think his current state, and the disconnect he feels from the events he's retelling (all new cells every 7 years) are an indication that forgiveness, wiping the slate clean, lead to him having a good life. Vengeance would not have done that. It wouldn't have brought them back or anything good into the world.

literal divine fiat

Angelic, at best. More likely: demonic. Which I think is relevant.

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Actually, he refers early on to a wife, children, and a vocation.

Well...he says:

I feel uncomfortable, as if I've received a gift, unasked, from another person: a house, a wife, children, a vocation. Nothing to do with me, I could say, innocently.

I think there are multiple ways to interpret that.

They're only there to produce an emotional reaction in the reader.

I presume that you read the story at least once without realizing that the narrator was a murderer. And from googling you are not the only person who had that experience. I mean, I have issues with Gaiman but... I don't think it's subtle accidentally. If it was just there to provoke, don't you think he'd have made it clearer?

When you mention refrigerators, in my mind that lumps it in with stories where brutality against women is just a way of demonstrating how awful the bad guy is so we can root for his comeuppance, and/or to torment or inspire vengeance by the good guy. This does not read to me that way.

Bottom line: a woman invites a man into her home and has a sexual encounter with him.

I don't know how to respond to that. I mean, if that is genuinely how you'd sum up the story... I can't say you should not feel that way, I just... don't know what you wanted the story to do, I don't know what you thought it was about, and I don't know what you think fiction is for. I think the story is meant to make the reader ask questions, and I think the perceived injustice you are reacting to is quite deliberate. If Gaiman wrote the story so in the end the narrator is arrested and jailed and after he dies he goes to hell and all of that is clearly a just punishment... I think that would be a fine moral, and a shit story.

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Strega:

I don't think it's subtle accidentally. If it was just there to provoke, don't you think he'd have made it clearer?

I actually think (and let me emphasize, this is ONLY my opinion) that the reaction he wanted is probably exactly the one one I'm having: to go through the piece once, enjoying the mythic, and then only at the end or on a reread, realize the man we've been sympathizing is a multiple murderer, specifically of a woman he had a sexual relationship with. I agree with Debet, that Gaiman sometimes writes boundary-breaking stuff to make his strongest impact, but I reserve the right to say, "THIS is way outside any boundary I feel comfortable enjoying."

I mean, if that is genuinely how you'd sum up the story...

As far as Tink, Susan, and the unnamed friend are concerned, that IS the story. They don't know about Raguel, and are too busy being eaten by their own microbiome to care.(They are connected to it, both by the narrator and Raguel, and by Debet's point about the broken nature of love in this universe) But to deny them their perspective is to, again, reduce them to objects that only exist to make an emotional impact on the reader.

(I think my definition of Women In Refrigerators may be broader than most; I pretty much mean the existence of a female character who only exists to make emotional impact on a character or the reader by her death.)

Debet:

I think Gaiman consistently lives right on that boundary for your point a. Like, he has a summer house there.

That much we agree on, no question.

an indication that forgiveness, wiping the slate clean, lead to him having a good life

I have an extremely large problem with someone who isn't the wronged party extending forgiveness. And that IS something we see in the world around us, more often than triple homicide, etc.

I should probably emphasize, I'm not claiming anyone's interpretation is invalid, just insisting that mine isn't, either.

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(I think my definition of Women In Refrigerators may be broader than most; I pretty much mean the existence of a female character who only exists to make emotional impact on a character or the reader by her death.)

Under that definition, Jenny from Love Story would apply, and I think she's a lot more than that. Just one example.

Out of curiosity, what would you call a male character who exists only to make an emotional impact through his death?

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I don't think it's fair to summarize the plot from the perspective of minor characters.

As a side note, I'd prefer if you abbreviated my handle to DE or Debet.

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Under that definition, Jenny from Love Story would apply

Can't comment, sorry. Never read it.

Out of curiosity, what would you call a male character who exists only to make an emotional impact through his death?

Oh, you can definitely have Men In Refrigerators, though I can't think of an example right now(Maybe in yaoi manga?). But the blow-on-a-bruise effect applies, it's always a worse offense when it happens to a female character.

I don't think it's fair to summarize the plot from the perspective of minor characters.

No real person is a minor character in their own life. And a good writer(Which Gaiman surely is) shouldn't write a character as if they were.

Also, I've edited to produce bafflement. Sorry.

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