Roaming Beyond the Ethnic Thing

Q: I enjoyed your book tremendously, which I read just before reading the first two stories in Nam Le’s collection THE BOAT. He is a good writer, excellent, actually, as are you, but I am noticing that the New York Times is correct in its review when it says that he is asserting “his right to roam beyond the Vietnamese thing.” As a writer of color (if I may call you that), do you ever feel that you must write about issues connected with your ethnicity or are you free to roam beyond the “African American thing” and explore other topics? Would you write a book that does not have an African-American protagonist and that does not touch on African American themes? If you did so, would you feel as though you had sold out? If you do not do so, do you feel that you are limited somehow by your ethnicity?

A: I have a feeling that I answered a similar question (questions) already, or maybe this is the question (s) that I am always being asked. Before I answer it (them), let me post some random things that popped into my head after reading your email.

1) I caught Trey Ellis being interviewed on NPR today. He’s got a new book out called Bedtime Stories: Dispatches from the Frontlines of Single-Fatherhood. Check it out at Amazon.com-- http://www.amazon.com/Bedtime-Stories-Adventures-Land-Single-Fatherhood/dp/1594865299/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213318953&sr=1-1

He and the interviewer are going back and forth about the book when the interviewer says something like this, which I am paraphrasing: “Your father was a psychiatrist. Your mother, a psychologist. You’re African American. Your mother committed suicide. That must have been hard at such a young age for you . . .”

My ears picked up “You’re African American,” and I wondered at it. Trey Ellis speaks like what he is, a well educated man, an assistant professor at Columbia, a novelist, a filmmaker. It is not possible for the audience to detect from Ellis’ voice over the radio that he is African American, so the interviewer must tell them. From the discussion of the book, which seems to be about a single father rearing two children, it is not possible for the audience to tell that Ellis is African American, so the interviewer must tell them.

It got me to thinking . . . it seems important for the audience to know that Ellis is African American, even though the book itself is not really about being black, or about the black experience (as far as I can tell from the interview).

2) My first published short story was “The Lord of Travel,” which shows up in my collection CHURCHBOYS AND OTHER SINNERS (Carolina Wren Press, 2003). Before it was eventually accepted by the Seattle Review, the story received a few handwritten rejection letters. (A handwritten rejection is a ray of hope for all beginning writers—it means your story was rejected, but at least they liked it enough to give you feedback about it.)

One rejection letter said something like (again, I paraphrase) “Why is the protagonist black? He doesn’t do anything black, so you might as well make him regular.”

3) Several publishers and agents rejected an earlier novel I had written with a similar comment: Your characters don’t act black enough. One of them added, “--and I have many black friends so I know what I am talking about.”

4) When I visit the bookstore, I note that my book (All or Nothing) is never shelved in the African American section. It is always shelved in the “regular” section.

Churchboys and Other Sinners is always shelved in the “regular” section.

My novels Hoochie Mama, Bounce, and Come With Me Sheba have been shelved in both the African American Section and the “regular” section, but usually the “regular” section.

Do these people not know that I am black? Would I sell more books if they knew?

I visited Barnes and Noble today. The African American section has books with scantily clad sexy men and women on the covers. The section looks . . . sultry. It arouses me sometimes to visit. I like that a lot. This way I don’t have to go to the sex and psychology section, where the erotic books are to get my groove on. The African American section looks like the sex and psychology section. It was startling finding Roots, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Beloved in that crowd. I felt kind of embarrassed to see them there, but I can’t say exactly why.

My novel Hoochie Mama was in that crowd too. It fit right in, but there was only one copy left, which means that it is selling. Good.

5) James Haskins (author of over 100 books) was one of my professors at the University of Florida. When he learned that I wanted to be a novelist, he gave me this bit of advice, which I paraphrase: “Never put your photograph on the book, Allen. If you leave it off, you’ll sell more books.”

But it was 1985. And he was the most cynical man I ever met. He always called me Allen. I wonder if he thought that was my first name. A lot of people do. My name is Preston L. Allen.

My picture has appeared on the cover of every book I have ever written, except for Hoochie Mama.

5) I’m not sure that All or Nothing is an African American novel, but its protagonist is definitely black. People seem to like him, black or not. They seem to regard him as a gambler who happens to be black, not as a black gambler. His girlfriend, C.L., is white. I don’t think I have gotten one single email referring to them as an interracial couple. Have I succeeded in writing a black book that is not about blackness or the black experience? And is that really a success? I said “succeeded,” but is that really a success, to write a black book that is not about blackness? Is that kind of like a white book wearing black face?

Should I have made him “regular”? If I had made him white, would it have changed the impact of the book on the reader? P is more of a gambler than he is a father, than he is a bus driver, than he is black, than he is a man. That’s what I think. What’s his race? Gambler. What’s his sex? Gambler. What’s his religion? Gambler. What does he do for a living? He’s a gambler.

I made him black because, as we all know, black represents the darkness of the soul. Thus, his skin color and race symbolize the dark place to which we sink when we allow a vice, such as gambling, to deprive us of our moral selves . . . NOT!

I made him black because I wanted him to represent all black people, and I wanted this book to rescue black people from the vices that white people have created since reconstruction to destroy us. NOT!

I made him black because it would match his hat. NOT!

I made him black because when I used to gamble, I was black. Thank god I had that surgery and I am white now. NOT!

I made him black because P is me, and this confessional which grew into a novel was originally intended to be a 100-page suicide note trying its best to explain the unexplainable to those I left behind: how this addiction drove me to take my own life. My plan was to just tell the truth to everybody in this long letter and then end it all. I was tired, real tired, believe me. Fortunately, I had a writing workshop the coming weekend and my writer’s ego looked down upon what I had written and said, “Hey, this is pretty good. You’re onto something here, Presty. Why don’t you fictionalize it and give it to your buddies in the workshop?” And then the next day, I won a big jackpot at the casino—five grand; the numbers on the machine were 371737; the Play-4 the night before was 3717, I was imitating it because it struck me as similar to my usual number 373737; and I was only playing it for a quarter because I needed to save up the rest of my money to buy the gun. Well, no self-respecting gambler is going to kill himself when he is on a winning streak . . . so that weekend, I was still alive and I went to the workshop with my buddies Leejay, Gonzalo, Elizabeth, and David, who gave me great feedback on the piece. The rest is history. To this day, I am not sure which of the two was more responsible for stopping me from going through with the suicide, my ego or the lucky five grand. At any rate, my buddies in the workshop liked the book, I got my gambling under control (again, for the third time, fourth?), and then I got the book published. And that’s the truth. Not!

. . . well, maybe some of it's true--but I won't say which because I am a writer of fiction, not of memoir.

6) Yes, I feel the need to write stories that reflect the black community, and I do. My award-winning Churchboys and Other Sinners (Carolina Wren Press 2003), for example, is a collection of stories with mostly African-American protagonists.

But mostly I just write the story that the muse gifts me--and the ethnicity of the protagonist will be whatever the muse says it should be. I don’t much worry about betraying the black community because I am black, so my awareness as a black person will inform the work even if its protagonist is white. My awareness as a Honduran will inform it too. My awareness as a man will inform it too. My awareness as a father will inform it too. My awareness as a Floridian will inform it too. Etc., Etc.

Yes, when I was a young writer, I used to feel self-imposed pressure when I did not write black stories. I had stuff that I wrote for myself, and then I had “serious” stuff that I wrote for the black community. Like I said, I was young. At the same time, I was very much interested in science fiction, thrillers, and classic American lit 101, most of which did not have much to do, thematically, with African Americans. Thus, many of my stories were already “roaming beyond the African American thing,” but I felt a little bit guilty about it. Like I was selling out my race. I was young. So young. When I grew up, I said, “I am going to write what I write and let the chips fall where they may. I will master my craft and become the best writer that I can be. Readers will like me because I am a good storyteller, not because I have a certain color skin.”

I think all writers feel this sort of pressure at some point and/or to some degree because every writer identifies with one group or another—should I write only about Boston, about women’s issues, about the gay community, about the disabled, about sports, about rural Alabama, about an evangelical upbringing?

Members of a racial or social minority, however, feel the additional pressure of having to defend the group. Thus, they feel that they are betraying the group when they don’t use their art to uplift it. And then they may feel that they are limiting their art when they do nothing save write about their group.

Furthermore, every writer wants to be taken seriously. Which of the two sounds more “serious” to you—(A) my story about a sleazy car salesman who falls in love with one of his customers and has her double cross him the way he has double crossed so many others, or (B) my story, confessional, about a black man who struggles against racism to earn a living as a car salesman in an upscale white neighborhood? The answer is B. Duh. The added benefit is that people will look at your black skin, learn that you were once a car salesman, and conclude that the story is based on real life. Voila. Now you are a serious writer. Your writing is genuine. Your writing is legitimate.

But if you make the protagonist white, it is merely a cute exercise on your part. Furthermore, you are a sell out.

Or so they say.

7) I’m glad I do not subscribe to that philosophy anymore.

Has Oprah roamed beyond the black thing?

Has Spielberg roamed beyond the Jewish thing?

Has Louise Erdrich roamed beyond the Native American thing?

Have Francis Ford Coppola (Apocalypse Now) and Martin Scorsese (Gangs of New York) roamed beyond the Italian American thing?

Has Spike Lee (25th Hour) roamed beyond the African American thing?

Has Tim Story (directed Fantastic Four) roamed beyond the African American thing?

Has M. Night Shyamalan (Sixth Sense) roamed beyond the Indian thing?

In fact, is Shyamalan ever going to make a movie that features Indian people/culture (ala Bollywood)?

You do realize that if M Night Shylamalan decided to take his international fame and superstar status back to India and produced/directed a feature film there that his potential audience is close to a billion? A billion!

Shyamalan's case is very interesting in this regards: many ethnic and social minorities roam beyond their "thing" in order to grow as artists and to gain a wider readership/audience, but Bollywood's audience actually dwarfs Hollywood's because of India's great population.

Bollywood films, of course, don't have much of an international audience outside of India, England, parts of the West Indies and parts of the US, while Hollywood films do--I'm sure RAMBO and the MATRIX are very popular even in Yakutsk.*

Thus, you can argue that M. Night Shyamalan is the "biggest" Indian film personality/name in the world, but the most "popular" is actually somebody you have never heard of and who has never bothered to direct/produce films outside his/her native India.

But, I digress.

The point is this: when in Roam, do as the Roamers do.

If you are a lesbian, for example, there is nothing wrong with writing a great/bestselling lesbian themed book. Awesome. Do it!

On the other hand, you are not a sellout to the lesbian community if you write a bestselling thriller with a heterosexual male protagonist. What you are is a writer. Lesbians will, and should, embrace you because you are good at what you do. Furthermore, I am sure that your sensibilities as a lesbian will inform the book in surprising and refreshing ways.

Further-furthermore, you could make your big splash writing scripts for "CSI:Miami"--I know, I know, it's not as fulfilling as writing scripts for "The 'L' Word," but that job has already been taken and a splash is a splash, and your community will and should be proud if you. They should be walking around saying things like, "You know that woman who is the lead writer for CSI? I knew her back in college at UF. She was president of UFLAGS, the University of Florida Lesbian and Gay Society. She's always been a real good writer. I'm proud of her."

The point that I am trying to get at, is that once you get beyond your infancy as a writer/artist is that you will find your own voice, your own style, your own audience; and the particular group that you come from will be proud of you because now they have a representative in that genre.

You are not a sellout. You are a representative.

You are an example that talent defies the pigeonhole.

It is a writer's job to write the best story that he/she is capable of writing.

That's what I always try to do. Sometimes that story is about my ethnic thing--sometimes it is not. But regardless of what it is about, the reader is going to love it.

8) Get a copy of the New York Times this Sunday (June 15th, 2008) and find a review of my novel All or Nothing. Then purhchase a copy of "All or Nothing" and judge whether or not I "Roamed" beyond my "ethnic thing."

I gambled a lot. I won a lot. I lost a lot. Maybe gambling is my ethnic thing!


Thanks for the question,

Preston

*Yakutsk--You've never heard of Yakutsk? You've never played the boardgame Risk? Yakutsk, Irkutsk, and Kamchatka? Oh you sad generation of Wii players--you have never lived, if you have never played Risk.

Preston