You Like It Darker

The dynamic protagonist of “The Answer Man,” Phil Parker is an ambitious but indecisive lawyer who initially faces the dilemma of choosing where to settle down and practice. His first encounter with the Answer Man helps him choose by providing him with foreknowledge of the consequences. His indecisiveness is thus the major character flaw that the story seeks to resolve.

Phil’s knowledge of the future helps him become a war hero and a prominent local figure, serving farmers and small-town businesses as the community’s first private attorney. However, Phil’s second encounter with the Answer Man reveals that he deeply fears losing his family. He becomes guilty of asking what the man calls “impotent” questions. These questions are intended to assure him of the future, but because they reveal that life doesn’t go the way Phil wants it, they only prompt him to ask more questions.

He overcomes his indecisiveness only after losing his family. He expresses his grief over the death of his wife by demanding to see the Answer Man again, not to predict his future but to make sense of his past. This expression represents Phil’s belief that a dark fate awaits him, supporting the theme of Bad Luck as Destiny. Having lived through his worst fears, Phil devotes himself to his work, relentlessly pursuing a major case that reminds him that while he has lived through unfortunate consequences, other people have endured much worse. Afterward, Phil is resigned to whatever lies ahead of him. He thus feels peaceful during his final encounter with the Answer Man, no longer troubled by his impending death.

The dynamic protagonist of “Laurie,” Lloyd Sutherland functions as a counterpoint to Vic Trenton from “Rattlesnakes,” showing how one might overcome the grief of losing a life partner to death by forming a new emotional attachment, further building on the theme of Dealing With the Consequences of Death.

Lloyd is a widower whose grief has led to his lack of self-care. When his sister Beth brings him a puppy to adopt, she arrives at a home in disarray. Lloyd hasn’t mown his lawn in a long time, and Beth must go get him some groceries. Later, Lloyd’s physical state improves through his relationship with the puppy, who he names Laurie. Beth schedules Lloyd’s medical check-ups, and the doctor indicates that Lloyd has been doing well because of his walks with Laurie.

The clearest indication of Lloyd’s development as a character comes at the story’s end. After saving himself and his dog from the alligator, he expresses his gratitude to be alive, a stark contrast to his inability to look after himself in the wake of his wife’s death.

The narrator and protagonist of “The Dreamers,” William Davis fought in the Vietnam War, an event that defines him, haunting him so completely that he loses the ability to feel emotion. William tries to restart his life by entering a career in stenography, using skills he developed through his relationship with his late sister. The fact that William derives his talent from this relationship signifies his desire to return to a version of his life before the war. His sister’s death compounds his inability to return to that life, which deepens his trauma.

Elgin’s experiments echo William’s time in the war because they expose him to horrors he can’t understand. His attitude toward the experiments shifts when he learns that something behind the dream barrier knows who he is and is trying to reach him. Though William quickly hides Devereaux’s body after an experiment goes wrong, he doesn’t hesitate to destroy all evidence of Elgin’s work after the tendrils that grew out of Devereaux overtake the scientist. William compares his dreams of the war to the dreams of the red house of Elgin’s experiments, indicating that the latter are his “bad” dreams because they remind him of the beings from another world that know who he is, but can’t be known. William’s fear of them signals the return of his emotions and, with them, his sense of humanity.

The narrator of “Two Talented Bastids,” Mark Carmody is the son of Laird Carmody, a novelist who becomes famous in his middle age. Mark previously worked as the superintendent for Castle County School but shifted to working as his father’s assistant in his later years. This career transition hints at Mark’s secret ambitions. His interest in his father’s work suggests that he would like Laird’s writing process to inform his own. When Ruth Crawford points out that his father’s breakout success coincided with that of his best friend, artist “Butch” LaVerdiere, Mark pushes her questions forward to fulfill the same agenda: to discover for himself what lies behind this coincidence.

Mark’s character arc is shaped by the discovery of a letter indicating that his father may have gained his talent from an alien encounter. When Mark goes to his father’s cabin to use the alien device for himself, he invites consideration of whether talent is hereditary. Resigned to the idea that it probably isn’t, Mark finds peace living in his father’s shadow.