Subject: (urth) "Kevin Malone"

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 22:36:57 +0000

What I would like to know is: who did what to whom, and why? Is KM a ghost,
or just what he purports to be?
    Note that we again have an unnamed narrator, though most everyone else
in the story is named. The narrator's wife is named Marcella. Is that name
significant? Why does she repeatedly impugn her husband's masculinity? They
are newlyweds, after all.
    The story, though contemporary (published 1980), evokes, I think
deliberately, the era of the 1920s, a la Fitzgerald. Marcella is an
alcoholic, and her husband is not far behind. Both are shallow, vapid, and
pretentious; basically useless people. The narrator questions their newfound
circumstances; his wife accepts things as they are. The narrator is cast out
of this Edenic life for questioning it; the wife remains, even if only as a
maid, seemingly with the concurrence of all involved. What conclusion are we
to draw from this?
    The black and white, dog-eared photo he is twice shown of the staff
shows some two dozen people, yet only about 1/4 that number appear in the
story. Where are the rest? Does Marcella assume, in some sense, the role of
the murdered Betty Malone? Were there other "young couples" before them?
    What relationship did the murder victim have to KM? Neither KM nor
Priest actually refer to her as KM's mother. The incident is related in
response to a query about KM going to an orphanage. And what are we to make
of the narrator's parting hunch that both murderer and victim being named
Malone may be coincidental? Answers anyone?

Roy

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