SOLOMON FLEW

I’ve entered that phase of drafting Dead End Boys where everything feels related to that undertaking in some way. The move is related because this is the work I am riding to my new home and new community—even though the novel won’t be involved in my actual studies. Last week, Kechi and I finally visited the Whitney Plantation Museum, and that’s related to Dead End Boys because it addresses some of the same tropes and issues the novel will. What are ghosts if not memory distilled? Places to locate our pain, our anguish over the past, our struggle for understanding of and freedom from what has gone before? I’ll be writing about our experience at the museum for Out All Day in the next week or so, and I’ll have a lot more details and organization to my thoughts by then. I’ll also be mining that experience and the things I learned through it for the novel—especially as it relates to the German Coast uprising and the blood, death, and suffering, that might open a channel through which Black folk might communicate with those they have lost.

I’ve also spent the last several days slowly rereading Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, and boy has that ever been instructive. It's always been important to me to revisit great works that have made a major impression on me at different phases of my life. For instance, I first encountered August Wilson’s Fences when I was an undergraduate at the Evergreen State College, twenty-five years ago. Back then, I identified closely with Cory Maxson, but seeing it again in my forties, I identified much more closely with Troy. Honestly, I remember very little about my initial impressions of Song of Solomon. I read it at the American Cooperative School of Tunis back in the 90s. I knew it was powerful, that the writing was superior, and the characters beautifully drawn. Now that I’ve read it again, I have a much better understanding of the metaphor of flight, of Milkman’s pain and the damage he has done to the people around him without hardly trying. I also better understand how that relates to the Black male experience in my own family and others.

The most important facet of my new understanding is the process of spiritual refinement Milkman progresses through to obtain the power to fly, whether it should be considered literal or figurative. The shedding of his old self, his old perspective, the sacrifices he must make for knowledge, the understanding he must form of the pain he has endured and the pain he has caused. It’s an alchemical process, a refinement of spirit, and Milkman is forged like steel through it. By the time he has his final confrontation, he is the man his best friend always wanted him to be, which helps me predict the outcome even though we don’t quite get it on the page. This has enormous bearing on the work at hand, and I’ll be processing it over the next few months as I bring the drafting process to a close.

It was a fantastic weekend, by the way. On Friday night, I did my hosting turn at Couillon Fest in Lafayette. For the third time, John Merrifield and his crew have pulled a festival together the right way. That will almost certainly be my final booked show in Louisiana before moving, and it was a fantastic feeling to share the stage with my wife, with friends I’ve known for years—some of whom I haven’t performed with in a decade.

There was a time when I considered moving to Lafayette to pursue a doctorate in creative writing at ULL, but I was never prepared to leave New Orleans. It wasn’t until late 2023 that I could even consider moving out of the city, and if it hadn’t been for all the crazy upheavals in my life—publishing Ballad, meeting Kechi, my near-fatal health crisis—I never would have seriously considered it, let alone pulled the trigger.

On Saturday, I tabled at the Jones Creek Regional Library for the Author’s Row event, and then I spent a couple hours talking and workshopping with twelve to fifteen people in a conference room. It was a lovely experience—to see so many local authors plying their wares and talk to them about speculative fiction and the current state of the field was just fantastic. One of the students happened to be a comic well acquainted with comedy in Louisiana, so we did a lot of chatting about that once the event closed.

I love libraries all over, but there is something special about Libraries in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. I’ve had such delightful experiences, from attending readings by Jon Padgett and Chip Delany, to helping produce and MC events for myself and others through them. Every time, I get nervous, because it’s so important to me to deliver an experience worthy of my favorite institutions, and every time, soon before the event arrives, I remember that this is my life. I am fortunate enough that I am surrounded by creativity, by writing and storytelling at all times, the way sea creatures are surrounded by water. All it really takes is to organize my thoughts, maybe rehearse a little, and just relax.

Kechi and I are so close to leaving. There’s so much to do—from completing our packing, to loading up our storage pod, to traveling cross-country and finding a new home, that we often feel overwhelmed and at-sea. I don’t know what Northwestern’s Litowitz program will be like, but I have the feeling that all I really need to do is stop worrying, lean in, and do the best work I can to make it a success.

Happy Monday, everybody. Let’s make magic.

Note: The accompanying art is by Nettrice Gaskins and is inspired by Song of Solomon.