Here’s my conversation with Natalie Peart. We covered a lot including:
- – The challenges of writing Angie and Ella
- – Portraying black male characters
- – My becoming a writer
- – How a writer knows when a novel works
- – And much more!
Category: News
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Interviewed by Natalie Peart – September 10, 2014
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The PSC/CUNY Op-Ed: “From Ferguson to Detroit”
For the September issue of the newspaper of the Professional Staff Congress/City University of New York, I had an op-ed published. Some excerpts:
And so the basic rights of more than ten million underprivileged African Americans are undermined by the limited resources allocated to them: those deemed worthy by a racist society receive the most, those deemed unworthy receive the least – and have the most exacted from them.
That is the backdrop against which, this summer, water was withheld in one place, a life gunned down in the other. No wonder that out of frustration and necessity, people in both Detroit and Ferguson – and in solidarity protests across the country – have taken to the streets to demand that their humanity be recognized.
Denial of common humanity has always been fundamental to white supremacy, throughout history. We can draw a direct line from the anti-slavery slogan, “Am I Not A Man And A Brother?” in the 19th century to this summer’s protests (“I AM a Man”) to see the pattern.
A life can be taken by the fast, brutal violence of a police bullet or a chokehold. But there is also the slower violence that can kill you just as dead, more gradually and in pieces – through poor health care, unemployment and bad housing, through denying you the resources you need to live.
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KIRKUS REVIEWS CALLS INTO THE GO-SLOW ‘PARTICULARLY RESONANT’
A strong review of Into the Go-Slow in Kirkus Reviews.
“Davis (Shifting Through Neutral, 2005) explores the ambivalent, often troubling experiences of African-Americans in Africa through the lens of a young woman who, having grown up during the civil rights upheavals of the 1960s and ’70s, struggles to find her place in the world during the less idealistic ’80s……The difficult intellectual questions Davis raises about personal identity and an African-American’s relation to contemporary Africa are particularly resonant given Nigeria’s current woes.”
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Duke’s New Black Man Calls It “A Page-Turner”!
What a great way to kick off publication date!
Into The Go-Slow was given a thoughtful review on the site run by Dr. Mark Anthony Neal, Professor of Black Popular Culture in the African and African American Studies Department at Duke University. The review on the widely-read site was written by Danielle Jackson. Here’s an excerpt:
Author Bridgett Davis has essentially inverted Americanah’s storyline. While Americanah focuses on a Nigerian-born Igbo woman who moves to the United States for university, stays to make a living and observes the paradoxes of American life, Into the Go-Slow allows us to experience the vast country of Nigeria through the eyes of an idealistic black American with an impossibly insatiable hunger for knowledge and who believes that travel to distant lands will enlighten her. I loved that Davis’ portrayal of Angela is full and that the character feels like a flawed, multidimensional human being on the page. Sometimes you want to shake her, other times you want to comfort her. Because of this careful, artful humanity and stunning, sensual depiction of Nigeria and Detroit in the 1980s, the book is a page-turner.
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Bookslut: “A Compelling And Succinct Read”
Here’s what Bookslut had to say about Into The Go-Slow:
The narrative is deeply character-driven and the Mackenzie family, through their momentous joy and devastating heartbreak, showcases a stunning spectrum of the human experience. The communities of Nigeria are drawn with the utmost respect and care. Although the narrative is propelled by the political climate of Nigeria and the desolation of 1980’s Detroit, Davis ensures that the focus is on the plight of the novel’s heroine. Into the Go-Slow is a work that spans across continents, cultures, and time yet the author’s smooth execution makes for a compelling and succinct read.
