Character with three personalities in “Long Black Veil” by Jennifer Finney Boylan (post 5): Quentin has internal dialogue, then speaks as Judith

Quentin, man of many voices—a talent for imitating the voices of other people—has just proposed marriage to the woman who had been his girlfriend years ago. She rejects his proposal. After he drives away and is alone, he has this dialogue with an inner voice:

[VOICE] Well, what were you expecting? That she would drop everything after all these years and leap into your arms?

QUENTIN Yeah, something like that.

[VOICE] And you expected this reception because?

QUENTIN Because she loves me.

[VOICE] Quentin, my friend. She doesn’t have the slightest idea who you are. Anything she was ever in love with was only what you let her see.

QUENTIN And that makes me different from other humans how, exactly?

[VOICE] In every way. The souls that other women come to love bear some resemblance to the men those souls actually belong to. Unlike some people we could mention.

QUENTIN So this is the price of being in love? Having to share your darkest self with someone before they wrap their arms around you? I don’t think most men approach the question that way exactly. Or women, for that matter.

[VOICE] Okay. So what now then?

QUENTIN We’re not going back to Continental Bank, I can tell you that.

[VOICE] So where then? Twenty-nine seems kind of old to be starting your life over again from scratch.

QUENTIN Starting it over? I don’t think we ever had one in the first place.

[VOICE] And whose fault is that exactly?

QUENTIN I know what you want me to do. But I’m not doing that.

[VOICE] Because your plan is clearly working out so well. When’s the wedding again?

QUENTIN Just because I know what we have to do doesn’t mean that I can actually do it. I’ll die if I have to do it.

[VOICE] Hey, whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

QUENTIN Yeah, I know that people always say that. But what they never add is, whatever actually does kill you, kills you totally fucking dead (1, pp. 34-35).

At the end of the chapter, the outwardly male Quentin says that his true personality is the female Judith, who speaks for herself:

“I’d always liked the sound of the name Judith; it was the name I’d used in private since childhood, since my first recollection of being alive. I said it out loud…I wasn’t quite sure what was going to happen next” (1, p. 40).

1. Jennifer Finney Boylan. Long Black Veil. New York, Crown, 2017.