Two Black Men - Harold Smith, 2020
"You have conquered, and I yield. Yet henceforward art thou also dead -- dead to the world and its hopes. In me didst thou exist -- and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself."
The above quote from Edgar Allan Poe's William Wilson, the great author's classic tale of a doppelgänger.
Namwali Serpell does a masterful job in adapting Poe's themes in her short story, Will Williams. Masterful on many levels, beginning with voice. As Poe has a wealthy English nobleman educated at Eton and Oxford narrate his tale, so Namwali has a poor Black man from the inner city narrate her story.
Right from the get-go, as we listen in to Will Williams relate back to his grueling school days, there's no doubt Nawali catches the rhythms and raw language of Will's speech, the pathos of Will's inner spirit as the tough high schooler shucks and jives, postures and punches his way in a world where so much is stacked against him.
And, man, on top of all the usual shit everyone poor and black like him has to deal with, things like being forced to go to a school where teachers act like jailers and rats crawl in the ceiling and the walls, there's something unique to him alone - another dude with his same tattoos and his same name keeps following him around.
Damn! What does that other Will Williams want with him? Who is this cat that he keeps egging him on, setting traps, challenging him to fight? And it doesn't stop, it doesn't stop!
No, as in the Poe tale, it doesn't stop - right through school, then through juvenile jail, then in the pen - ah, for years! - then from city to city, from New Orleans to Miami to Detroit - it doesn't stop. Will Williams is always there for Will Williams.
Namwali Serpell's tale is so worth it. Does Namwali upstage Edgar in casting Will Williams, the double, the doppelgänger, as not only a second personal self but also a second larger self that's as large as an entire city, an entire hostile society? You'll have to read and judge for yourself.
Available on audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/Will-Willi...
Born in Zambia and educated in the United States, Namwali Serpell currently teaches at University of California, Berkeley
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