We live in the house behind and can’t see the street: our back windows face the gray stone of the city wall and our front windows look across the courtyard into the kitchens and bathrooms of the front house. The apartments inside the front house are lofty and comfortable, while ours are cramped and graceless.
“The House Behind” is a story about class conflict and how the tensions arising from those conflicts often erupt into violent displays of emotion that will be blamed on anything other than the class inequality. These opening lines situate the division simply and effectively while also—by virtue of its placement—calling attention to the social distinctions separating the house in front and the house behind.
We were not embarrassed to say we had no money, and no food either, and he was pleased to invite us out to dinner. He took us into town to a very good restaurant on the main square where the rows of plantain trees stood. A television crew were also dining there, twelve at the table, including a hunchback. By the large, bright fire on one wall, three old women sat knitting: one with liver spots covering her face and hands, the second pinched and bony, the third younger and merrier but slow-witted.
It is not unusual for Davis to people her stories with a large cast of background characters who are not particularly relevant to the plot. It is quite unusual for any of these characters to talk. In fact, even the protagonists of her stories do not express themselves in conversation through dialogue. She is a descriptive writer of prose rather than a dramatist relying on what people say to give them meaning.
And it happened that as she grew older still, and more tired, and then still older, and still more tired, another change occurred and she found that even the mildest sort of companionship, alone together, was now too vigorous to sustain, and her fantasies were limited to a calm sort of friendliness among other friends, the sort she really could have had with any man, with a clear conscience, and did in fact have with many, who were friends of her husband’s too, or not, a friendliness that gave her comfort and strength, at night, when the friendships in her waking life were not enough, or had not been enough by the end of the day.
If you look carefully at the above quote you will find that it contains just one period, found at the end. It is actually just a single sentence comprised of more than one-hundred words (though not one-hundred different words since part of its power relies up repetition) and the really great thing is that this quote is not some strange exception. Davis is virtuoso of the long, complex sentence and, what’s more, she knows when and when not to use them. This entire story is only around 350 words long and the reader gets sucked into the woman’s state of mind existing weirdly between reality and fantasy even as it speaks to the subject of confusing these two states as not being a betrayal of either.
Representatives of different food products manufacturers try to open their own packaging.
Biographies and critical engagement with Davis almost always describes her writing using terms like “innovative,” “experimental” and “original.” This is what they are talking about when they use words like that. The entire story—every single word of it—has been quoted above. It comprehensively delivers on what the title promises. And nothing more.
