The Art of The Knock

Philip Graham

"Graham investigates and celebrates human intimacy in this book. He makes the reader laugh at the characters' idiosyncracies, grow sober at their problems, but he leaves the reader wiser to human predicaments, to the baffling ways we hide from one another and the frightful loneliness that results. This is a book you will remember with fondness."

--James Mendelsohn, reviewing The Art of the Knock for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 9, 1985.

Excerpt from the short story "I Dreamt About You Last Night," from The Art of the Knock:

He was exhausted and felt ensnared in his accumulating falsehoods. He switched off the television, the lights, and walked to the bathroom, where he turned on the water from the shower head and adjusted the temperature. His left foot tingling, still half-asleep from standing, Turley undressed in front of the mirror and was suddenly afraid of what he saw. Under the harsh fluorescent light he could see the symmetrical trails of blue veins that traveled his pale body, half of his blood running to his heart, the other half running away. He turned off the light, felt his way to the tub, and showered in the dark.

He dried himself quickly and then walked carefully to bed, his hand sweeping before him in the darkness. In bed, he slowly turned under the covers, and when he lay still he could feel the force of his monotonous, trembling heart as he thought of all the lies on the walls. When he was finally asleep, Turley dreamt that his bones began to grow fluorescent in his body, beginning with his jaw and spreading down the spine and limbs until they gleamed against his frail and hidden muscles and organs. When he lifted his hands the bones glowed, illuminating a mirror on the wall. He walked to it and stared, terrified, at his livid skull, at the shining sockets beneath the gristle of his nose, and he ran from this vision. But as he rushed through the rooms the walls flared bright, his own dark words now visible through the paint and surrounding him. He continued to tear through the house, his feet aching, his lungs beating against the blaze of his ribs, and he tried to leave his body behind, but how could he escape from his own terrible light?