The Black Hand was responsible for the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

With a politically provocative plot, The Black Nineteen (B19) convolutes the identity of VMS with one major controversy: its authorship. The story, according to FXC, tells “a bloody tale of political intrigue in the Hapsburg Empire” (300).  This is fitting with the true story of the Black Hand, who were a Serbian society that used “terrorist methods to promote the liberation of the Serbs from Serbia” (Britannica). FXC also explains that many scholars believed that Amanuensis, a member of the Black Hand with no proof of existence, wrote B19 — or that Straka was Amanuensis or at least in contact with him. Eric quickly rejects this idea (as does FXC), explaining that the Amanuensis theory does not hold because “B19 is an outlier — not much overlap in material/style with other VMS books” (300).  Amanuensis means a literary assistant, so it is quire possible that this person is not actually a carachter but rather a helper, so it is possible Straka is Amanuensis and just helped write the novel.

Regardless of who wrote the work, B19’s association with anarchy and crime makes the identity of Straka exciting and dangerous. Jen remarks, “The Black 19 reads like a confession to lots of Black Hand killings” (ix). Later in the book, Eric writes out a list of all crimes Straka has been accused of (11). Straka’s attribution to B19 is consistent with the nature of those accusations.

B19’s controversy confuses Jen, Eric, and FXC who can only ponder the questions the book raises. Referring to the B19 references in the interlude, FXC asks: “Is this Amanuensis-Straka killing off his past self? Rejecting a former ideology? A different Straka, killing off one of his rumored identities? None of these?” (300). Perhaps the controversial subject of the book made the author even more careful to conceal his identity.

B19 appears elsewhere. Jen and Eric swap Ship of Theseus in room B19. The Santorini Man — the enigmatic body that washed ashore in Greece — had a torn out page from the novel in his pocket. Could the Santorini Man have been Amanuensis?

The book’s title ties in the recurring appearance of the number 19. To see a catalogue of 19s in S., please visit: http://sfiles22.blogspot.com/2013/01/19.html

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