‘Red Light’ by Zach Williams

Red Light by Zach Williams, 2024

The magic trick:

Finding life-affirming beauty in a situation that might strike most readers as threatening or scary

We’re going to do a whole week of stories from Zach Williams’s new collection Beautiful Days. It came out in 2024 and got a lot of buzz – at least as far as short story buzz goes. So I was excited to jump in and see what all the hype was about.

The first story I read was this one, called “Red Light.” And it really it really got me. I wasn’t sure how many of these stories I was interested in reading. I’m definitely skeptical of a new writer. If the first story isn’t all that exciting to me, there’s a decent chance I won’t. keep going, and I’ll just take the collection back to the library or whatever it might be. There are simply far too many great stories in the world to read.

But in this case, “Red Light” was the hook. It made me want to keep reading and I knew we’d have a whole week of these stories on the website.

In “Red Light,” a man answers an ad for a sexual encounter. And I won’t say much more about what happens, but his attitude and approach to sex, especially as a sex worker, is remarkable.

I think we are conditioned – or at least I have been conditioned – to find that these topics are salacious and scandalous, and, when featured in a story, my reading radar suggests that obviously something very salacious and scandalous is about to happen.

But the narrator here views it all as beautiful and interesting almost to the point of it being the essence of our entire purpose on the planet. And that’s quite a trick on Williams’s part.

The selection:

“I’m not turning on the lights,” she said, stepping into the apartment. “You don’t need to see anything. Walk straight to the bedroom. I’ll meet you. And take off your shoes, please.”

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