{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1403",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1403,
    "subject": "\"Kevin Malone\" : A theory & spoilers",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-03-02T02:12:11+00:00",
    "last": "1999-03-02T02:12:11+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0024-0029@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Roy C. Lackey",
        "address": "rclackey at stic.net"
      },
      "date": "1999-03-02T02:12:11+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) \"Kevin Malone\" : A theory & spoilers",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "    I have carefully gone over the text and have a theory that covers all of\nthe major plot points in \"Kevin Malone\" -- I think. It doesn't require that\nI reveal any private, off-list confidences from Tony Ellis, so don't blame\nhim. In fact, this theory is very different from his. There is no way to\nexplain it without divulging parts of the plot, so be warned!\n    As with everything else Wolfe writes, the story is replete with\nauthorial misdirection and narrator misapprehensions. For instance, the\n\"master\" is revealed on the third page of the story (p-39, TOR paperback),\nwhen the narrator asks \"Will your master be able to see us?\" Priest, who\nnever lies (p-44), answers wryly, \"The music room, perhaps, sir?\" He then\nleads them to the room overlooking a rose garden, complete with gardener,\nwho presumably isn't blind.\n    As the narrator hints, there is no necessary familial relationship\nbetween the elder Malone and Betty Malone. The common surname is\ncoincidental. Further, I contend that Kevin Malone (KM) having the same\nsurname is also coincidental, or at least not directly relevant. (His father\nmay have been related to the elder Malone.) At any rate, KM states that his\nfather was the \"man-of-all-work\", his mother the \"parlor maid\", and that he\nlived on the estate (p-45). Priest says that the elder Malone was the\n\"stableman\" and Betty Malone just \"one of the maids\" (p-48). This is not the\nsame as KM's description of his parents.\n    But, you will say, if KM was not the child of either, much less both, of\nthe dead Malones, how is it that he was an orphan? He wasn't. The text does\nnot say that. The narrator asks, \"I wondered why you had to leave and go\ninto the orphanage. Did your parents die or lose their places?\" (p-47).\nPriest and KM then give the sketchy account of the murder/suicide, in the\ncourse of which Priest says of the elder Malone \"...it's possible he was\naccused falsely.\" (p-48) Precisely. The elder Malone didn't kill Betty\nMalone. KM's father or mother killed her (probably the father, as a hammer\nwas used, a tool of a 'handyman'). Betty was a young \"tramp\" (p-48). She was\nsleeping with both KM's father and the elder Malone. One of KM's parents\nkilled her, out of jealousy/rage. The elder Malone committed suicide, either\nout of grief or guilt. The suicide following closely the murder, \"they\" (the\npolice) assumed that the elder Malone was the murderer. Case closed.\n    Others on the estate may have known or suspected otherwise. KM's parents\nwere fired or had to quit their jobs. Thus did they \"lose their places.\" KM\nwas put into an orphanage because his parents couldn't afford to care for\nhim. KM is \"a man of middle age\" (p-44) thus, counting back from the \"now\"\nof the story (late 1970s ?), the murder/suicide would have occurred during\nthe Great Depression, so his going into an orphanage would not have been\nthat unusual, given the circumstances. This also explains why there was no\nmention of a child in the newspaper accounts of the murder/suicide. Neither\nBetty nor the elder Malone had a child.\n    When KM says \"...the house owns me.\" (p-45), he is referring to his\nobsession with it, that he had to amass a fortune to acquire it, that he had\nto return and live there. He is possessed by the \"spirit\", if you will, of\nthe estate. This is in keeping with the time-honored tradition of\n\"hauntings\" associated with places where unresolved violent deaths have\noccurred. It is unresolved because the truth has never come out.  Also, his\nobsession to acquire the estate may have been due, in part, to his desire to\nkeep the true facts of the murder from coming out and bringing shame to\nhimself and his parents. That's why he \"had to have control\" (p-47). The\ntext hints that he may know where the body is buried. He was old enough to\nhave known the truth about the murder and what led to it.\n    This reading also accounts for his misogyny. It was \"a tramp\" who\nbrought about his family's ruin and led to his expulsion from his idyllic\nhome. Which brings us to Marcella, another tramp, also possessed by the\nhouse; \"It owns me too.\" (p-45). All we are shown of her character indicates\nthat she would never assume the role of a maid by choice.\n    Well, it all fits. Anyone buying it?\n\nRoy"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}