Gathering of Waters is a boldly spun yarn, with consequences that extend across time and place. This is an arresting historical portrait of Southern life with reimagined outcomes, suggesting that hope in the enduring power of memory can offer healing where justice does not suffice.

Bernice L. McFadden and Amy J. Moore’s February Discussion on Gathering of Waters:

A:  Bernice, this month has been rather a whirlwind for you, what with the release of Gathering of Waters and the well-deserved accolades for it.  Thanks for weighing in with our Cinechicks’ group.  It’s thrilling to have the actual author here to address our questions.  And it’s especially thrilling to have you here, my dear friend.

Why do you think this book is having the effect on people that it is?   It carries many of the same themes of your other stunning books, your haunting and evocative prose, your ability to move audiences — why this one?

B: I think that readers and critics alike are fascinated by the fact that the town is telling the story.

A:  So if I said … two words:  Emmett Till.  You’d say …

B:  Money, Mississippi

A:  I’ve always emphasized place as being a character in movies.  When I work with screenwriters, I suggest instead of character or plot – they consider staring with place.  But back to Emmett Till.  On page 159, I love your description of what Emmett was to Tass:  ”… Emmett was everywhere and present in all things.  He was all over her mind, pressed into the seams between the floorboards, glowing amidst the stars, and there in the sweet swirl of sugar, milk, butter in her morning bowl of farina.”  Who is/was Emmett Till?  And why is/was he important to us, to the world?  I honestly did not know who he was before I read your book, and am admittedly a little embarrassed by that fact.

B: This book came about because I and so many others had no idea who Emmett Till was – I mean who he really was. For so many of us Emmett Till was a black boy who was murdered in Mississippi and then he was that battered face in the open coffin. Of course he was more than what we saw and what we read in he newspaper. That bothered me. For me, Emmett represents the fight for freedom and equal rights. Although he did not willingly give his life, the sacrifice helped to change this country for the better.

A:  But why not write a book just about Till?  You could have filled chapters upon chapters about his journey from Chicago to the South -instead, you don’t reach Till’s inclusion until Chapter 22, page 156.  Why make this book about Money, Mississippi rather than about Till solely?  In that vein, the whole first part is backstory for part two.  Or is it?  Why did you choose to start this book where you did?

B: I believe that for every effect there is a cause – this explains the backstory. When I started writing GOW, I thought the entire book would be dedicated to Emmett – but for a very, long time I only had one line dedicated to him. “That boy came down from Chicago to Mississippi.” And then the Hilson women came to me and I thought, okay maybe this book is not about Emmett Till. And then of course the story unfolded and Emmett was at the center.

A:  I believe that “souls inhibit all objects, living things and even phenomena” – lines that introduce the concept of magical realism in the early pages of your book – but why the need to “inhibit,” for instance Dolly’s character with the soul of Ester-the-whore?  Are you suggesting that evil is something that exists outside of the individual?

B: I think evil is everywhere, just like good is everywhere. Esther didn’t start out bad, the absence of love turned her that way.

A:  For the South American novelists, magical realism was always a form of protest to their country’s oppressive regimes.  Why magical realism?  Those are your words magical realism, by the way, from one of our conversations.  I’m not sure I would have called your book magical realism.  But since you have, why not a straight-forward narrative?  We don’t have to hide in this country from oppression.  (Or do we?)  Is there another reason for this choice?

B: I will admit that I am intrigued by the magical realm, but never thought that I would utilize in the way that I did in GOW. Having said that, let me say that I did not choose this approach it chose me – which is how it works with these books I write. Quite often I am just a vehicle.

A:  You seem like a deeply religious woman – well-versed in the bible, lots of references in your work – does this conflict with or complement your belief (or presentation) of magic in the work?  What significance does religion hold in your work?  Can you name other authors who seem to share and embrace this sensibility as well?

B: I do not consider myself “religious” and I’m certainly not well-versed in the bible. But I do consider myself a very spiritual person, and that does come across in my writings. I see the same sensibilities in Alice Walker and Toni Morrison’s work.

A:  That brings up a great question – given that we’ve got you here today.  Who are your greatest influences in writing?  Presumably we’re reading some of the authors whom you admire in our “Last Tuesday Club,” but who do you look to for guidance when you pick up a pen?

B: Toni Morrison is my absolute favorite author. I have not come across anyone who can turn a phrase in the way that she can. Her stories make you think..really think. I love that about her work.

A:  Why not give Hemmingway Hilson is husband?  Is it immaculate conception?  If it is, does that make her daughter, Tass a female Jesus?  And if that’s so, and Tass represents Jesus, is your vision of a modern day (1950s-1960s) Jesus, a young woman, living in Detroit, having babies — her life, in the end, “like an echo?”  Maybe that is a type of death on a cross!!  This idea has made me laugh all morning.  You are one cheeky writer, aren’t you?  And like Christopher Wilson, our author last month, you choose humor wisely but more subtly it seems.

B: Truth be told, I have no idea who Hemmingway’s father is. I asked and meditated on it for some time and nothing came to me. I tried to create a father, but it read false, so I just left it alone. Perhaps he will reveal himself in a future story. I don’t know. I do like the idea of immaculate conception!

A:  Does Tass’ love – under those gray clouds of Detroit – change the fate or landscape of Money or of Till?  Her “average” life – again under gray clouds – holds a major significance on the world and the direction of the world.  Her “averageness” allows us all to relate to her, in a way, like the common carpenter who became a fisher of men still acts as a role model for us.  How does Tass embody love, the choice of love?

B: I think Tass is the perfect representative of the burden of unrequited love. I also believe that the number of children she had was a way to fill that hole in her heart that Emmett’s death blew open.

A:  Okay – hard question.  Whistling at a pickle.  This is a fabulous choice, and really humanizes the little boy who had a hankering for Stetsons, the charismatic little big-man who likes frozen grape gobstoppers.  And in fact, I think one of the best things about your novel, is that you capture the essence and vulnerability of the sweetest little boy.  The New York Times, of course, stole that thought from me when they raved about the novel in the Editor’s Pick & review on February 12th.  Did you choose this purposely to shy away from the potential – it really isn’t a fact – that Till had whistled suggestively at a white woman?  What happened to him subsequently is still not alright.  Why make this choice?  Why not go with a more straight-forward whistling at a white woman?

B: Some said Emmett did whistle at Carolyn Bryant, other’s said he didn’t. With that information in mind, I figured the best way to go would be to say that he whistled for her and not at her. We know the story of Emmett whistling at Carolyn – but something else surfaces when we read that it was for her. This act humanizes Carolyn – I thought that that was important.

A:  Can the soul of a place change?  How?

B: I think it can. I feel the changing of the soul right here in my neighborhood if Bedford Stuyvesant. This neighborhood as undergone many changes – it went from good, to bad, to very bad and now it’s on the upswing again. I think the soul of a place is made up of the residents and the energy and ideas they bring.

A:  Where can we buy grape gobstoppers?  Do you have a particular memory of licking them?  Do images from your life often infuse your work?  What’s one of the most haunting images from your life that found its way unconsciously into your work?

B: Yes, I remember Gobstoppers from my childhood. I do include my personal experiences in my stories, sometimes it’s a conscious decision, other times it’s purposeful. I was in a car accident when I was two years old. I don’t remember any of it – but I recreate what it might have been like in my fifth novel: Camilla’s Roses. I think that recreation was extremely haunting.

A:  When Tass moves to Detroit with Fish, her mother gives her a a vase, and the spirit says, “And that’s how I followed Tass Hilson-May all the way to the Motor City.”  Now I had read that initially as the soul of Money, Mississippi following Tass up to Detroit – because Money was narrating the book.  And given the time period, and the historical context that you’d been incorporating, I was pretty sure this spirit was headed to the Detroit riots of 1967, when the whole of Detroit was under the seize of the race riots, 43 lives were lost, 2,000 buildings were damaged, and the landscape of Detroit was forever changed (or not so forever, we hope.)  It wasn’t until Tass goes to Hemingway’s funeral, much later that she picks up the spirit of Emmett Till.  Did you avoid Detroit’s riots?  Or are these just in my consciousness given that I live smack among these spirits and ghosts?

B:  Funny you mention that. I did write a bit about the Detroit riots and then deleted it. I had tackled the riots in a previous book and what I’d written about it in GOW sounded much like what I had written before – so I thought it best to let it go.

A:  Likewise, the last child that Tass gives birth to is Debra who is born in September, 1967 – a month or so (depending on when in September), that the riots have happened.  Who is Debra?  What spirit does she have?  Is it a dandelion weed from Money that has floated up to Detroit?  Is this how evil spreads, like the seed of a dandelion or am I just being narcissistic.  You did put them in Detroit, and you did mention that year – 1967.  That can’t have been unconscious, or was it?

B:  I use some of the names of my cousins who live in Detroit and Debra is one of those names. So to me, Debra the character in the story and Debra my cousin are kind of one in the same. Sweet, loving, generous and funny as all get out! I guess 1967 was an important year for me in Detroit — that car accident I mentioned, well that happened on September 26th, 1967 on stretch of highway between Ohio and Michigan. My mother and I recovered at the family home in Detroit. So I guess that is the significance and not the riots.

A:  It takes Sonny’s African sweetheart from Ghana to see the ghost in Tass’ house.  Why African?   You mention that babies are open to all things, and that at some point as toddlers (page 212) “spiritual consciousness slipped closed.”  Why might an African’s consciousness stay open?

B: I guess it seemed only right to make the woman African – since the book opens explaining that Native Americans and Africans believe in animism. I believe this belief is still in place and practiced in both cultures, which I suspect keeps young and old open.

A: Your writing has so many rich moments – that while focused on the narrative, I didn’t always see immediately.  One such huge thought, but handled in a passing way, comes on page 208.  The spirit says that “one full day for you is an entire year for a soul.”  I would have thought that an entire human lifetime would be a single day for a soul – the reverse of what you write – but in fact, viewing a single day as an entire year is a much more rewarding and sophisticated stance (in its simplicity).  It gives meaning to every one of our days, and suggests in a passing way that we shouldn’t squander them.  Likewise, the line before it “there are many, many bends in the road.”  Where do these words, these thoughts come from?  Are you conscious when you write them?

B: It comes from my deep belief in something larger and greater than myself. It comes from the respect I have for the universe and the magic it spins.

A:  Why do these things always happen in the South?  Can you explain that to a northern girl?  And along those lines, where are you from?  Or your ancestors from?  Does this have a bearing on your work consciously or sub-consciously?

B: The South is a very seductive place. My mother paternal and maternal lines hail from the South. My father’s maternal line is Caribbean, but his paternal line is southern. I was brought up around my mother’s people – down home southern folk. And even though I spent very little time in the South, I feel a strong connection to the place which is why I write so much about it.

A:  Water is so important in your book – the floods of 1927, the Mississippi (which means the place where waters gather), Katrina — what is the significance of water?  Why not fire?  We Detroiters know a lot about fire; we live with a sense of fire all around us, which of course, water puts out.

B: Water is life. Water in the womb. Water in the seas, oceans, lakes and rivers. Our bodies are filled with it. We would die without water, but at the same token, water has caused the deaths of countless number of people around the world. Truthfully, fire scares me in ways that I can’t even begin to translate onto the page.

A:  You conclude your novel with words that almost make the book a cautionary tale to how we live.  You say – I’m going to leave that slight slip, “say” when my word should have been “write – but so much of this book feels like we’re sitting on your knee, listening to a tale.  ANYWAY, in the end you say … “I pray that you will become more sensitive to the world around you, the seen and the unseen.  As you go about your lives, keep in mind that an evil act can ruin generations, and gestures of love and kindness will survive and thrive forever.  Choose wisely, dearest …”  Money, Mississippi becomes almost the voice of an omni-present (but not necessarily omni-potent because we have choice) God.  Is that your personal belief?  That that’s what life boils down to?

B: Yes, that is my absolute belief. If you spread good – good will return you. If you spread evil — well that’s what you’re going to get in return.

A:  Who is “Dearest …” whom is addressed?  You don’t do it frequently, but enough to be significant.

B: Dearest are all of the people of the world.

A:  Why choose to have Tass and Emmett skipping off into the forever with Esther hovering, ready to really mess things in the form of Katrina?  Hasn’t the soul of Emmett Till found peace and solace with the soul of love, with Tass?  Are you suggesting the danger is always all around us?

B: Tass and Emmett were in no danger at all – they had left the physical world. It was the living who were in danger.

A:  On a final note – I think the idea of matched souls, a soul-mate forever, a single love in one’s life – - is a very powerful notion.  Deep down we like to believe there is one person whom we love differently from anyone else.  Who’s your soul mate?

B: Gosh, my soulmate is a man I met many, many years ago. I believe that we were together in a past life. Upon our first meeting the familiarity we felt for one another was nothing short of remarkable!

A:  Boy … I know what I want to ask you about in our next discussion !!  Thanks, Bernice.  You inspire me more than I have words to say …

Our wonderful extras:

Bernice talks about her book.  Movie_8

 

 

 

High Praise for Waters:  Advanced Reviews!

Alan Cheuse on NPR:
http://www.npr.org/2012/01/17/145357664/book-review-gathering-of-waters

ALAN CHEUSE: The town literally has a voice and narrates this novel, inviting us to plunge into a deep and powerful story of love, hate, race, demons and desire with the lynching of Emmett Till at its center.

I have been many things, the voice of Money, Mississippi, tells us. I have been figments of imaginations, shadows and sudden movements seen out of the corner of your eye. For a time, I lived as a beating heart. Once, I was a language that died.

McFadden works her own language. It’s hot and alive and effectively sketches characters’ hopes and fears in the time before the lynching of young Emmett Till puts Money, Mississippi, on the map.

Till, visiting from Chicago, begins a serious flirtation with Tass, a local black girl, a flirtation that continues on after his death. Long after Tass grows up, moves to Detroit and raises a family, she and Emmett meet again on the muddy earth of Money, Mississippi. Sounds unbelievable? Not when you read it.

Read it aloud. Hire a chorus to chant it to you and anyone else interested in hearing about civil rights and uncivil desires, about the dark heat of hate, about the force of forgiveness.

ReadsFourPleasure.com

Gathering of Waters – Bernice McFadden

I worried that there would be no one to take J. California Cooper’s place. I thought Bernice McFadden might be the one when I read Glorious. After reading Gathering of Waters, I’m sure of it!

I’ve often said that reading a J. California Cooper book is like sitting on the porch listening to your grandmother tell you a story.  Using lush words and phrases that make you long for those days, McFadden’s latest will leave you breathless from start to end.  Once you start Gathering of Waters, you won’t want to put it down until you’ve finished it.

Warning: When I read and write about really good books, the words I’m looking for don’t always come out right.  So even if you can’t feel it while reading this review, know that I was gushing over the greatness of this book while writing it.

Through narration by the town of Money, Mississippi, the reader is taken on a journey that explains the evil spirit that inflicted Roy Bryant, one of the men responsible for the murder of Emmett Till.  Surely one would have to be evil to harm an innocent child the way the Bryant and his accomplices did, right?

We’re first introduced to the spirit, which belonged to the town’s recently deceased whore, early on when it comes back in the form of a little girl.  When that child’s mother can no longer control the monster that her daughter has become, she sends her to live with a preacher’s family where her destructive ways reach far and wide.  Eventually the spirit finds its way to another innocent child, this one a white boy brought back from the dead, who would eventually become the Roy Bryant who murdered Emmett Till.

Weaving history with fiction with surrealism left me absolutely fascinated with the way the author tied the stories of each person affected by this evil spirit together and then went a step further and tied it into water.  Water is used often in literature to symbolize life, transformation, chaos or a cleansing.  In Gathering of Waters, water is present at each milestone: Doll’s transition, Roy’s re-birth, Emmett’s transition, Emmett’s rebirth (of sorts), and Tass’ transition. The culmination of the last two events brings forth one of the most chaotic events of present time.  Water…who would have thought it could wreak such havoc.