I grew up reading all of the Judy Blume and Norma Klein teen novels I could find along with classics like Pride and
Prejudice, To Kill a Mockingbird, and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. College found me pouring over seminal texts by Gayl Jones, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Toomer, Nella Larson, and Toni Cade Bambara. I also devoured novels by such African writers as Flora Nwapa, Amos Tutuola, Ama Ata Aidoo, and Nawal El Saadawi. After college, I sought the writing of keen women’s voices like Marita Golden, Gloria Naylor, and Lisa Jones. And all through those years, I wrote.
I wrote poems and short stories about love and identity and displacement. I typed the tales of girls, men, and women I knew and didn’t know. I experimented with voice, language, and politics through my writing. Interestingly, my then fellow freshman, and now friend-turned-agent Nicholas Roman Lewis prophesied in our first-year English class that I was a gifted writer who needed to make the most of my talent. But though I wrote—and wrote very well—I didn’t consider myself A WRITER.
By my late twenties, I realized that I had read a lot and written a lot, but I still was looking for a story that explored an African diaspora that was neither long ago nor far away. And I wanted it to be sexy and “dramaful” and fun, like the lives of my peers. I longed to read that book but could never find it on library and bookstore bookshelves. So I wrote the book I wanted to read: A Love Noire.
It began in November 1998 with a sentence that gnawed at my mind as I sat on a New York City subway train en route to Columbia University. I spent the balance of my hour-long commute writing what would become the first love scene of the book. I showed it to a friend later in the day and he said “this could be a book.” I balked initially, than began to ruminate on the characters in my love scene. Who were these people? Why were they together passionately loving each other’s bodies but somehow emotionally distant?
I sketched out the profiles of both characters, created histories, families, and friends for them, and continued to write scenes. In the first six months—until May 1999—I graphed my emerging story onto a timeline, writing the ending scene well before I knew the middle. All of this happened while I completed my anthropology master’s thesis; each project nourished the creation of the other.
After taking a six-month hiatus, I revisited the writing project in earnest, realizing that there was indeed a book in this story. I outlined the story chapter by chapter, and conducted research on my characters’ ethnic backgrounds and social mores through the internet, libraries, and conversations with friends. I used my anthropology background to extract meaning from anecdotes and observations. I looked back on notes from my own varied travel experiences to Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and throughout the U.S. and gleaned information from the travel of others.
Incredibly, the process of writing A Love Noire happened on nights, weekends and occasional early mornings tucked around my full-time work schedule. And at a point, the novel’s characters became real, and told me their stories with an urgency I had to respect. It was as though I had become a medium; I listened to them and recorded their stories as they told them. Sometimes I was surprised by their actions or disagreed with their logic, but I was committed to sharing their truth as they lived it.
I spent the latter half of 2001 birthing the novel into completed form, and the first few months of 2002 in ruthless revision, paring down 380 double-spaced-pages to 321 pages. I gave part one—then the first 155 pages—to several friends to read and tweaked it further according to their feedback. My agent Nicholas read it all and offered keen criticism. I made still more changes and proclaimed it ready for Nicholas to send it out to publishing houses at the end of May 2002.
Nicholas had obviously sprinkled magic dust on our primary targets because, barely a month after submission, we had serious interest from several houses and offers on the table. I believe that my sista-spirits Grandmommy (Vera Farmer), Aunt Barbara (Barbara Welborn), and Gail (Gail Roberson) whispered into my ear the day that I had to make a final decision on which publishing house to choose; it was Amistad Press, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
There were several months of relative (but very enthusiastic) calm before the editing storm that began in earnest in late October. Working with my Amistad/HarperCollins editor Kelli Martin, I tweaked and revised some more, completing edits in record time and just in time for Christmas!
This experience has been lots of fun and chock-full of learning for me. I’ve received tremendous support from family, friends, and colleagues, and I’ve enjoyed working cooperatively with Amistad/HarperCollins on everything from book design to marketing and publicity. I’m happy to be working with a competent and energized team who is committed to A Love Noire’s success.
And now it is both an honor and a privilege to offer A Love Noire to all of you. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
