 |
|
|
|
| Decoding The History Of Black
Mysteries |
| Spooks,
Spies, And Private Eyes |
By
Paula L. Woods, written for The New Crisis magazine,
September/October 2001.
When then-President Bill Clinton cited Waiter Mosley as
one of his favorite mystery writers, many believed Mosley
to be the first African American to find success in the
genre, unaware that Chester Himes had preceded Mosley by
several decades. But misperceptions like this are not uncommon,
because there are as many plot twists and surprises in the
history of African Americans writing mystery, crime, and
suspense fiction as there are in the genre itself.
The earliest mystery fiction by African American writers
appeared not in book form, but in "colored" periodicals
and newspapers. Among those pioneering writers were journalists
Pauline Hopkins (whose short stories, "The Mystery
Within Us" and "Talma Gordon," appeared in 1900
issues of the Colored American Magazine) and John
E. Bruce (whose "The Black Sleuth" was serialized in
the 1907-1908 McGirt's Reader). And while Hopkins'
1900 novel Hagar's Daughter contains mystery elements,
it was Jamaican writer W. Adolphe Roberts who was the first
Black to publish a mystery novel, The Haunting Hand,
in 1926. Yet Roberts' effort wasn't recognized for almost
three quarters of a century, perhaps because his characters
were not Black.
The absence of Black characters was not unusual for mysteries
of the 1920s. Called "Golden Age" mysteries, these
novels were notable for the ways in which they distorted
the lives of people of color.
"When we read a classic mystery of the 1920s and the
people with dark skins and accents...are all servants or
villains, then this tells us something important about America
in the 1920s," asserts Frankie Y. Bailey, an associate
professor in the School of Criminal Justice at New York's
University of Albany, who uses mystery fiction to teach
students about crime and mass media.
Given this distortion of Black life, the appearance of Rudolph
Fisher's 1932 The Conjure-Man Dies, the first mystery
novel by an African American to feature Black characters,
cannot be overlooked.
Fisher, an erudite physician, novelist, and personality
of the Harlem Renaissance, was probably the last person
one would expect to write mystery fiction, and he was certainly
out of step with other African American literary figures
of his time. Yet Fisher drew on his background and broad
knowledge of Harlem society in crafting his groundbreaking
mystery, which featured a physician sleuth, Dr. John Archer,
and Perry Dart, an NYPD detective, as his putative sidekick.
Their investigation of the death of an African psychic and
king, Dr. Frimbo, placed Archer and Dart in the midst of
Harlem locales and residents of all social strata as they
unraveled the perplexing crime.
Fisher was not the only Harlem Renaissance figure to write
in the mystery genre or the sub-genre of political thrillers.
Journalist, critic and novelist George Schuyler, perhaps
best known for his satirical novel Black No More,
wrote numerous mystery short stories for the Pittsburgh
Courier under his own name and several pseudonyms, and
published two political thrillers in the 1930s. During the
same period, Alice Dunbar Nelson, the widow of famed poet
Paul Laurence Dunbar, experimented with mystery short stories
that appeared in African American periodicals. Most of these
stories, however, were firmly entrenched in the Black middle
class, as were their authors.
Chester Himes would break that mold. A college student whose
life went awry, Himes spent almost six years in the Ohio
State Penitentiary for armed robbery. There, he began to
write short fiction, mostly crime stories that appeared
mainly in African American periodicals, though a couple
were published in Esquire magazine. After his release
from prison in 1936, Himes wrote more fiction and reported
on current events for periodicals, including The Crisis
as did Ann Petry, best known for her classic novel of inner-city
realism, The Street (1946).
In the 1940s and 1950s, Petry, Himes and Richard Wright
were in the vanguard of young writers whose work departed
from the uplifting moral tales of their predecessors to
embrace an edgy, naturalistic style. While not technically
mysteries, Petry's novel, Himes' early novels like The
Primitive (1955) and Wright's Native Son (1940)
blazed a trail that later generations of mystery and crime
writers of all races would follow.
Himes, after four largely unsuccessful novels, found his
greatest success as an expatriate in Paris, writing what
were then considered "lowly" mystery novels. The publication
in 1957 of La Reine des pommes (also known as For
Love of Imabelle and A Rage in Harlem in the
United States) gave Himes literary freedom he had not before
experienced.
James Sallis, author of a recent biography on Himes, explains:
"What Chester found in the mysteries was an engine
by which he could in principle examine anything—the post-War
urban environment, racism, poverty, social inversion. In
exploring the possibilities, he created a new kind of tale,
part folktale, part dirty dozens, all improvisation. The
kinetics of any one of those novels is like nothing seen
before. They move. Almost every sentence is a two-edged
blade, laughter and horror cutting the reader asunder."
For Richard Yarborough, who teaches graduate courses in
mystery fiction at UCLA's Center for Afro-American Studies,
this duality reflects African Americans' uneasy relationship
with the law, which he notes is "fraught with conflict.
Sometimes Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson (Himes'
NYPD detective heroes) are so hostile you forget they're
cops."
Himes would receive recognition and acclaim for his nine
Harlem novels in France and, belatedly, in the United States,
and inspire generations of writers from African American
novelists Ishmael Reed, John Ridley and Gary Hardwick to
white writers like Himes biographer Sallis, whose Lew Griffin
detective series features a Black sleuth.
While Himes is a powerful influence for many, inspiration
for the more than 40 African American mystery writers active
today comes from a variety of sources.
For Gar Anthony Haywood, whose eight published mysteries
include six featuring South Central Los Angeles private
investigator Aaron Gunner, that inspiration was science
fiction. "From the age of 13, I grew up writing science
fiction short stories," he says. "But I was also
reading classic crime and mystery fiction as well – Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle, Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald.
For Gary Phillips, who has written four mysteries featuring
Los Angeles P.I. Ivan Monk and a second series of crime
novels featuring Las Vegas showgirl Martha Chainey (including
Shooter's Point, forthcoming in October), the inspirations
are Wright, Macdonald, Ralph Ellison, comic book writers
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby — and the Bible.
"Is not the Bible a collection of stories of redemption,
triumph, tragedy, chicanery, lust and greed?" he asks.
"Are these not the elements of crime and mystery stories?"
Biblical allusions aside, contemporary African American
mystery writers offer readers something more than just entertainment,
which critics acknowledge stems from Black people's unique
perspective on the world.
"Any diaspora people, by being embattled, is going
to be tuned into what people don't say," suggests Lev
Raphael, book critic for National Public Radio's The
Todd Mundt Show and mystery columnist for the Detroit
Free Press. "So Black crime novelists give us an
extra layer of social understanding that makes the crime
novel's search for truth that much more resonant."
That resonance is clear in mysteries that address such important
subjects as communism (Mosley's A Red Death, 1992)
solving murders committed during the civil rights era (Phillips'
Only the Wicked, 2001), the Million Man March (Haywood's
When Last Seen Alive, 1999), color and class consciousness
(Valerie Wilson Wesley's The Devil Riding, 2000),
and elder abuse (Eleanor Taylor Bland's Scream in Silence,
2000).
Bland, who lives in Waukegan, Ill., and whose nine Marti
MacAlister mysteries are set in the parallel universe of
Lincoln Prairie, is the most prolific among African American
female mystery writers. The topics she addresses—racism,
alcoholism, elder issues, physical and sexual abuse of children,
and homelessness — echo the serious subject matter explored
by Petry and non-genre writers of the past.
Given the gravity of her concerns, Bland faced some special
challenges in creating her homicide detective protagonist.
"I wanted a strong, Black woman who plays it by the
book with integrity, morals and values. A woman who raised
a family, did a job, was tough, compassionate, and caring.
A woman in a "man's" job who remains a woman, and "hangs
out with the boys" without compromising who she is."
Strong "sister sleuths" abound in mystery fiction
written by contemporary African American women.
In addition to Bland's no-nonsense MacAlister, there are,
to name only a few: the "eggplant black" full-bodied,
feminist maid, ironically named Blanche White, in Barbara
Neely's award-winning mysteries; Washington D.C, cop Leigh
Ann Warren in Chassie West's Anthony-nominated (a mystery
writing award given out by Bouchercon, the oldest and largest
convention of mystery readers) series; lawyer Carole Ann
Gibson in Penny Mickelbury's series set in Washington, D.C.,
California, and the Caribbean; and former Essence
magazine editor Valerie Wilson Wesley's Tamara Hayle, a
Newark, N.J., P.I and protagonist of six mysteries.
While African American female mystery writers address social
concerns like their male counterparts, their novels also
contain strong family dynamics that make them even more
compelling.
"I write novels that examine the inner workings of families
— how they can provide a person with great strength or cripple
her," says Wesley.
"Tamara's family provides both for her. She has an abusive
mother, but also a loving, generous grandmother. She has
a son she adores, yet a brother who committed suicide. I
try to make my novels examine all these issues."
The interest in families has led some writers to craft mysteries
specifically for young readers.
Patricia E. Canterbury's latest, The Secret of St. Gabriel's
Tower, is the first in a planned three-book series and
is written for ages 9-14 and Evelyn Coleman, who has written
a political thriller for adults (What A Woman's Gotta
Do, 1998) has written two historical mysteries for young
readers published by Pleasant Company/American Girl, Mystery
of the Dark Tower (2000) and Circle of Fire
(2001).
Once hooked readers will find a wealth of subject matter,
locales and philosophies in crime fiction written by African
Americans. There are political thrillers and satires, legal
thrillers and cozies (usually featuring female amateur protagonists),
medical thrillers and Ivy League mysteries, mysteries set
in Sacramento and Harlem, Seattle and Paris, even a mystery
that takes place at a national convention of Black journalists
(Plain Brown Wrapper by Karen Grigsby Bates).
One thing is certain — mystery fiction by African American
writers is, as Richard Yarborough says, "as diverse as the
Black Community itself." |
|
|
|