“Oh no,” she replies, “But they were incredibly handsome … tall and young and handsome, my dear, just exactly like you.”Īs the pair sit on the sofa, sipping tea, with Billy still worrying at the question of where he’s heard those names before, he notices suddenly that the animals he saw through the window are, in fact, dead. He asks the landlady whether her guests were famous. But when he signs in, he notices that there are just two other names in the guest book, each dating from several years back, each oddly familiar.
The woman who opens the door puts Billy in mind of “the mother of one’s best school friend welcoming one into the house to stay for the Christmas holidays”, and the rent is “fantastically cheap”. He reasons that “animals were usually a good sign in a place like this” and decides to chance it.įrom this moment on, Dahl allows the sense of menace to gradually mount. The scene is gloriously inviting: chrysanthemums in the window, a bright fire in the hearth and, in front of it, “a pretty little dachshund … curled up asleep”. Walking from the station to a hotel, he passes a house with a B&B sign in the window and glances in. The story opens with young Billy Wheeler, newly arrived in Bath on “business”, casting around for a night’s lodgings. I first encountered Dahl’s chilly little tale in an English lesson at the age of 12: it sunk its claws into me then, and in the years since it hasn’t loosened its grip a fraction. Looking back at the historical record, the evidence would appear to suggest that my close-mindedness on the subject of short fiction kicked in around puberty, along with other vices including, but not limited to, Sour Apple 20/20 and Regal Kingsize. Leave a comment ‘Mrs Bixby and the Colonel’s Coat’ by Roald Dahl Collected in Someone Like You, Knopf, 1953, and Complete Stories Vol 1, Penguin, 2013 Posted on JJby Jonathan Gibbs Posted in Summer Special 2021 Tagged Roald Dahl. You can read more at and find her online published in Collier’s Magazine, 1948. Josephine is a teacher and writer whose published work includes poetry and travel journalism. ‘Man from the South’ reminds me of listening to a great storyteller spin a yarn with a surprising punchline – it achieves catharsis. My money’s on the plot mechanics which – like the best thrillers – capture and twist, leading the reader, inevitably, towards a visceral ending. Is it the straightforward language? The almost invisible, Gatsby-esque narrator who – like the reader – sees everything yet never interferes? It can’t be the other characters who, I think, appear somewhat cartoonish and flat. There’s something so satisfying in the set-up of the scene.
What I love about this author’s writing is his ability to entertain. Dahl turns the trope of ‘a stranger comes to town’ on its head by setting the scene in a place where none of the characters are ‘home.’ And the ‘stranger’ is perhaps all the more peculiar, to balance out the temporariness of place. ‘Man from the South’ is a snapshot of a hot Summer afternoon in Jamaica where a deal between strangers gains momentum, building to a single horrifying moment. Is it possible to read – and still enjoy – the work of those with whom we strongly disagree? Roald Dahl himself was known to hold controversial opinions and it is perhaps for this last fact that I went ahead with my choice. The man of the title is exoticized – almost animalised – with his “very small uneven teeth” and the fact that the only black character in the story is the “colored maid” portrays a time in literature quite different from our own. First published in the American magazine, Collier’s in 1948, the story displays certain early twentieth century values which might stick in the throat of the modern reader. I hesitated in picking ‘Man from the South’ which I have enjoyed reading to classes over the years.