A man spends his days as a janitor, but in his imagination, he is someone else.
In Dorothy West’s “The Typewriter,” a young girl’s typing exercises give her father an unexpected escape from the disappointments of his life.
As Millie takes dictation, her father invents letters from a persona he creates — one “J. Lucius Jones” — a wealthy businessman who speaks the language of success, power and money. For a few minutes at a time after work each day, the drudgery of his real life falls away. He is no longer the man who cleans buildings and struggles to make ends meet. He is the man he once imagined he might become.
It is a beautiful and painful premise for a story — and an astonishing one for a writer who was only 17 when she wrote it. “The Typewriter” tied for second place with a story by Zora Neale Hurston in the 1926 fiction contest sponsored by Opportunity magazine, and its publication helped propel West into the literary world of the Harlem Renaissance.
But the story is less interested in success than in the psychology of failure. West gives us a man who has spent years adapting to a life that feels smaller than the one he once imagined. His fantasy is modest, almost absurdly so — and yet it sustains him.
Then the typewriter disappears.
What happens to J. Lucius Jones then?
West reveals just how much of a life can be invested in a fantasy, and how devastating it can be when that fantasy is taken away.
And why does this man invest in that imaginary world? Why does anyone? Why indeed?
On this episode of The Lonely Voice, we look at Dorothy West’s remarkable early story —and the lonely, fragile man trying to become someone else — word by dictated word.
Dorothy West is the author of "The Typewriter." It appears in the collection The Richer, The Poorer: Stories, Sketches and Reminiscences.
