Dusk

I chose to read Rober G. Cowser's short story A Stranger At Dusk. The first thing that struck me as a point of interest was the title. Titles can be crucial in short works of fiction and nonfiction, and we often judge a piece by this seemingly trivial embellishment; it can cause us to pick up a book or leave pass it by. When I read the other titles, I wasn't as interested because none of them seemed to merit anything of suspense or drama. "Stranger" and "dusk" are words that illicit something a little more foreboding, and I find those kinds of stories entertaining. The title also give you a very concise summary of what the story will be about, which was also crucial in maintaining my interest throughout.

The story begins with tension and carries it to the end and nothing about the piece feels comfortable, to me. I like that about this story, that we don't really know who Billy is and what happens to the man in the car. We don't know what was said between Billy and his father and why that may or may not be important. There is a narrative resolution in the sense that the story begins and ends with the coming and going of the stranger, but why it is significant escapes me. I can come up with a myriad of inferences and conclusions, but the fact that it is so open-ended leaves me second guessing what the author and the speaker's intent really are. Maybe we're not supposed to know. Maybe this is a story about the aloofness of rural society, about how people don't really know each other, about how they distance themselves in the face of "otherness" and "abnormality." The situation with the car is something strange, as is Billy's mannerism and the way he walks. So many questions weaved into a tiny narrative makes for a compelling piece. I like the vague aspect of this story as I like the tension that that vagueness creates.

-Samantha Markey