Coming From the Jungle with Dwight Thompson

[00:00:00] I was never really comfortable at home in some ways because being a person who is sensitive to things, you realize that that kind of sensitivity could get you in trouble or cause you to be victimized. Writing was a way of dealing with that discomfort. What's good? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams and this is Black & Published on the Mahogany Books Podcast Network.

[00:00:25] Bringing you the journeys of writers, poets, playwrights and storytellers of all kinds. Today's guest is Dwight Thompson, author of the novel My Own Dear People. It's a story about a young man reflecting on the harm he and his friends caused a young teacher while they were in high school and why even as a spectator, the protagonist was still a perpetrator.

[00:00:49] It's almost impossible to change or if you're from a certain jungle, then even if you leave, you still have the stripes and you still have that smell. So what was driving the narrative for me, it's how hard real change is for us boys growing up in Montego Bay. Dwight, who teaches at an international school in Hiroshima, Japan, said he needed some distance from his boyhood in Jamaica to tell the truth about his upbringing on the island.

[00:01:18] How his own reflection of his childhood informed the creation of his character. Plus, how telling the truth got Dwight's novel labeled as too lewd among some editors. And the measurement Dwight uses when writing that lets him know he's on the right track. That and more is next, when Black & Published continues.

[00:01:51] Dwight, when did you know that you were a writer? I think it was in high school. I was initially a science student, but I always found time to write. And I realized I was more drawn to writing than anything numerical or scientific.

[00:02:17] So I think my creativity started bubbling then when I was in my early high school years. All right. So then knowing that you wanted to write from as early as high school, what did that look like for you as far as charting a path towards your debut novel? I knew I wanted to be, as you would say now, a creative person, a creative.

[00:02:44] But it wasn't until I was maybe 15 or 16 that I started to like write short stories and be comfortable enough to show them to people just to get feedback. Mm hmm.

[00:02:59] So when I realized that I was comfortable enough to let someone else read them, I realized I was developing a passion for story writing, so to speak, because I wanted to connect with others by having them giving me feedback. And when you connected with others to get that feedback, what were they saying about your stories?

[00:03:26] Well, they would say it shows talent or you should take it to someone who has experience in that field so that they could guide you. So I remember I would go to the library and just get advice from the librarians about what to read, how to craft a story.

[00:03:48] And it was funny because I never thought to go to like my English teachers, who would have been the more natural choice. But yeah, going to the library, I discovered that whole tradition of West Indian writing, which I didn't know existed. And I could begin to see myself in the old writers like V.S.

[00:04:15] Naipaul, George Lamin, all those great writers who had gone before. But it was almost something that I can't put in words. I just felt this connection with not even the content, but something between the lines, so to speak. And I knew then that I had to do this. I had to pour out whatever was inside me. I had to become a writer in that sense.

[00:04:44] So the compulsion of the page pulled you. It sounds like the compulsion of the blank page pulled you to become a writer. Right. So then what was that journey like? What steps were you taking to become a writer with now your novel, My Own Dear People? This is actually my second novel, but I had jotted the basics of the story while I was still in college.

[00:05:08] But it never really came together until I started working. And it almost felt like the missing parts of the story were yet to be filled in by just me gaining more experience as a young adult. So the story almost put itself together in that sense by a lived experience, if you could call it that.

[00:05:36] So I had the basic framework, but by gaining a broader frame of reference, I was able to put all the pieces together. So this story required you to live before you could actually write it. Right. Like not just jot the ideas down, but to actually go through them to give them whatever they needed to be real.

[00:06:03] And a lot of the story takes place with young men and the flashbacks of when they are in high school, secondary school. But the protagonist, Nigel has now come back from college. He is an aspiring poet and he is being very reflective on some of the harm he was a part of as a teenager at his all boys high school.

[00:06:29] And you talking about you having to live and go through certain experiences to accurately reflect on the page, the story that you were trying to tell. What kind of reflection did it require of you as both the author and creative to render this story accurately? But also with the introspection that the characters would not have in the moment?

[00:06:55] I think first I had to leave home because I needed, I think, some physical distance and also psychological distance to like pour through all those experiences, filter through them and put it on paper in a way that made sense to me.

[00:07:20] So when I could do that, when I could leave home, be elsewhere, go back through my thoughts, go back through my past relationships, all those things that I couldn't articulate to myself when I was so close to the subject matter, I could do now when I was away.

[00:07:40] So I took the time to write portions of the story and let them settle and then show them to my friends, got feedback. And just through the feedback, I could like put my friends in the story and contextualize the story better.

[00:08:03] So it was more of a dynamic process that way by allowing them to be a part of the creative process. So I think it was those two major things, being away from home and being comfortable enough to allow my friends to be a part of the creative process that made the storytelling more real or more compelling.

[00:08:27] And so were you always working on My Own Dear People, even as you wrote what became your debut novel, Death Register? I was, but I would put it aside because Death Register at that time felt more urgent. That story came more readily to me so I could finish it and then take the castoffs or the portions that didn't fit into Death Register and turn them into something else.

[00:08:57] Not to say that the second novel is a reworking of the first one, but it was just a way to find out that they're basically very different books in the way they approach similar subjects. Because the protagonist of the first novel, Death Register, is basically a boy going through a traumatic experience.

[00:09:23] But with the second book, Nigel himself is trapped in this world where trauma is one of the components that you have to internalize and normalize in a way. It has to be a part of you. So it was different in that way where Chauncey was an innocent bystander in a way, a victim.

[00:09:50] Whereas with Nigel in the second novel, Nigel is a silent witness, but also in another sense, he's a perpetrator. In writing these stories about young men navigating Montego Bay and the reality of living there instead of just for the foreigners to vacation there and how hard that living can be.

[00:10:13] What is it about that setting that draws you to revisit it over and over, even though you had to escape to write about it? I think because I was never really comfortable at home in some ways. Because being a person who is sensitive to things, maybe more than other people are, you realize that that kind of sensitivity could get you in trouble or cause you to be victimized.

[00:10:41] So you realize that even though you're born somewhere and you grew up there, there was always something that made you not as comfortable as other people are necessarily. So writing was a way of dealing with that discomfort.

[00:11:05] So I think even in short stories, I keep exploring that discomfort just to, in a way, feel closer to home or to understand why it is so hard for the society to be not accepting of everyone. On a level playing field, so to speak.

[00:11:31] So it was just that process of exploring that uncomfortable space that you grew up in through your creative field. And so you talk about finding comfort on the page where you did not find it in person. But then I wonder, did that discomfort come back when you began your publishing journey to publish Death Register and now My Own Dear People, as far as reception from agents and or editors?

[00:11:59] It did, because I've had feedback from agents or publishing houses and they tell me that the writing is a bit too lewd or it's not easily digested. But then I think to myself that if I tried to write in any other way, then it wouldn't feel real to me.

[00:12:25] So through that rejection, I realized that the writing was getting the kind of response that I wanted, that it made people feel uncomfortable. Just in the same way that my experiences as a teenager or a young adult made me feel uncomfortable. So I knew I was doing something right in that sense. Because I was making other people uncomfortable.

[00:12:54] They were actually feeling my pain, so to speak, going through my experience. And so then what was the decision like for you to work with Akashic Books on this project, knowing that you had already gotten feedback that it was a little hard to digest? I think with Akashic, the editors, they understand the Jamaican context more than other publishing houses.

[00:13:19] So I could use them as a sounding board in a way, right, to test out new ideas, to see how far I could go with certain things. And I just needed that space where I felt comfortable in not feeling that I had to restrict myself in any way in terms of creative expression. I just needed that comfort zone. And that's what they provided.

[00:13:44] I felt like I could go the distance with the writing and not feel like I had to compromise anything in any way. What do you mean by go the distance with the writing? Sometimes I like to write stuff that just makes me laugh. Or just makes me go, oh, that was harsh. And I would just be walking around the house laughing to myself when my wife would go like, what's your problem? Why are you so happy?

[00:14:10] I was like, I just wrote something that actually surprised me, which doesn't happen all the time. Which is like, okay. So when I could do that, I could like share it with my editor. And he would be like, oh yeah, I see where you're going with that. I like that. Then it was like I had an extra brain, so to speak, where we were seeing things eye to eye.

[00:14:35] And I felt comfortable enough to express everything that I wanted to express. All the quirks, all the things that I think made my writing unique. I could not hold back. I could express everything, which was good. And so then in being able to express everything in your work, we now have this novel, My Own Dear People. Can you read something from us so that I can ask you questions about the book?

[00:15:05] Okay. My Own Dear People by Dwight Thompson is a novel about a young man named Nija, who's returned home to Montego Bay from college with dreams of becoming a poet. But being back home and caught up with the boys of his youth and all the ways they use and abuse women in their life, mothers and grandmothers, girlfriends and aunts, even neighborhood women and a teacher in training, the last of which haunts Nija and forces him on an internal journey of reflection to discern right from wrong.

[00:15:35] Here's Dwight. I'll read this passage where Nija, the protagonist, he goes to like a small town in Westmoreland because he's looking for the trainee teacher that was assaulted when he was younger. So he's on his own personal journey here. I stepped from the bus with bravery I didn't feel, sucking in the salty wind like a tonic.

[00:16:04] As I wandered down the street, women offered me whole melons just so I would stop at their stalls, piled high with deep green fruit. A particular shade I hadn't seen in years, which I felt a craving for, not just from my gastric glance. The place was replete with shops selling cutlasses, holes, shiny knickknacks and fishing wares,

[00:16:29] and a few tawdry tourist shops plastered with sunbleach tourist board posters. Vendors were doing a brisk business near the station. They sent children with fruit samples among queues along the yellow buses. Pick up your strength, chirped the children weaving through. Pick up your strength, as if there were coaches handing out glucose to athletes. Hey, you little white cockroach, roared a man at one of the boys.

[00:16:59] Sell me half a melon. On either side of the road were freshly dug melon patches, and on one side a stretch of beach. Where's the museum? I asked one of the vendors. Putting a hand above her pale eyelashes to blot the sun's glare, she pointed. Right down there. You can walk or take a hack. A hack? I smiled at the strange word. She noted my tone with scorn. She was proud.

[00:17:29] The people here in Seaford Town didn't like outsiders judging them as bumpkins. Yeah, she responded with her mashed mouth. Or if it suits you, ask someone else. I didn't mean to offend, but I'll need something specific. Right round the bend, Talbot. You can't miss it. This was another vernacular quirk of theirs. They called men Talbot. Talbot is an extinct dog breed. My name is Nigel.

[00:17:58] What's yours? She pushed her dirty blonde hair from her liver spotted face. She looked like Mother Teresa dug up from the dead. Look here, Potty. For all the time, you just cost me. You have to buy a melon. I thought I was about to get one free. You taught me out of it, she snapped, clicking her tongue against her scattered teeth. Or you taught yourself out of it. Which one?

[00:18:25] The other women nearby fiddled with money bags below their sagging breasts and smiled. The tan lines along their necks shone with a healthy golden tone. I saw the laugh starting at the corners of her lips. I smiled back. This whole town of displaced Germans, dropped in the middle of nowhere by Lord Seaford to make up for labor shortages after slavery, deserved a case study.

[00:18:52] Their skin, especially at the backs of their necks, was sunburned to an almost syrupy brown like the potatoes they sold. Their hands and faces leathery. Their rotten teeth stumps the color of brown sugar. They had been abandoned but had kept a strong and impressive sense of community. Mother Teresa must have noticed my discomfort. She foisted the melon on me like a ticking bomb. What's your name? I repeated.

[00:19:23] Heidi, she said. Then called over to her children, playing with bleached shells. I could have guessed that. A dirty little white girl, holding one of the shells, ran up to me and said, Me sell you this for twenty dollars, or a malta and banana chips. She was very serious about the barter. Her sea-green eyes, floating in her coppery face, finally settled on my trousers. Where are you, Billy?

[00:19:50] Heidi glanced at the girl with a mixture of awe and amusement, then yelled, Take away yourself, you dirty little whore. You soon start selling your little cocoa bread. The child stood her ground, ignored her mother. The other women laughed at her determination. Heidi took my hand and felt my palm. Your hand's soft. Your from-mo-be, she concluded, like an empiricist. But see this though, said another woman.

[00:20:19] What a way is she eager. The two of them seemed both proud and ashamed at the girl's effrontery. Let me see that shell, I said, taking it from the little girl. It turned out to be a hairbrush that only looked like a shell, with a pink, glassy texture that shone with many colors when it caught the sun. For some reason it made me think of Brianna. Twenty dollars? The girl shook her head. Me said twenty-five.

[00:20:47] The woman laughed again, but heartily. Her blood come on, but she know how for graff, said one of them. I smiled. I won't ask again. You might raise it to thirty. She had dirty blonde hair like her mother, but hers was scraped into a ponytail. Here. Brush your hair with it one last time. For good luck. She brushed her hair perfecturally. You go give it to your girlfriend, she blurted out, grabbing my hand.

[00:21:17] Take me with you. Mona, Heidi snapped. That's enough, you little tegareg. Don't embarrass me. We're not starving. We're not hard up. Mona pumped my hand and looked fiercely at me. Them found Jakey dead from epilepsy, she said with a rush of breath. Stinking and rotten in the seaside hut. And them scraped him up with a shovel. Mona, come here, the dotted bitch, said Heidi.

[00:21:43] This unrelated tale embarrassed and startled me. The child looked stricken with a dreadful panic. Who's Jakey? I asked her. Him was a old sea dog, Fisher. F-I-S-C-H-E-R. Him did promise to take we back to Germany. Every night when him on the beach and warm with drink, the back of him eyeballs began to sweat. Till him see the cut his sock out upon the sea.

[00:22:12] The tea clip of that bring we here. He was building an ark. Mona tugged my arm around her neck and gave me an earnest look, as if I were Jakey's replacement. As if I should continue his work of repatriation. Take me back to mobile with you. I might have been Jakey's reincarnated self. Thank you. So I definitely found this book very hard to read and digest.

[00:22:40] It took me like two, two and a half weeks maybe. Like the book opens and the main character's on the bus with this woman he doesn't know. And then all of a sudden they're like in this hotel room and they're having sex. And I'm like, what happened? You just met this girl, right? And I know it's supposed to explore toxic masculinity. And Nyjah have this like revelation over the course of the book.

[00:23:09] But I personally don't think that he did. Like he's more observer to his community than he is having a grand transformation that this is wrong. Because even when he knows things are wrong, he still takes part in them. Right, right. So in crafting that kind of dissonance for your main character,

[00:23:35] what was it that you were trying to get across about this community that he came from? I guess how hard change is. Like it's almost impossible to change. Or if you're from a certain jungle, as we like to say in Jamaica, if you're from a certain jungle, then even if you leave, you still have the stripes and you still have that smell.

[00:24:03] So while he was in that jungle, even if he has like internal change, it's hard for him to break out of the mold that he was made in. Like even with his relationships, it's hard for him to open up and be vulnerable. Even as someone that's intelligent and sensitive and cultured or whatever,

[00:24:30] he still holds back because he's still very much a product of his environment. So even with education and being exposed, it's still hard for him to change. So I think for me, there is what we call theme or what was driving the narrative for me. It's how hard real change is for us boys growing up in Montego Bay.

[00:24:58] And so this is a very male masculine book. Right. And I don't think I've spent this much time in that kind of mindset in a long time, for better or for worse. And so for me, what I noticed as just rampant was the different levels of abuse of women from mentally the gaslighting.

[00:25:26] There's also the sexual violence that you mentioned. That's the central portion of the book of how Niza is trying to seek redemption for himself when everyone else around him wants him to forget it. And then just how easily women are disregarded from his mother, to the old tarot card reader, to the grandmother that gives him refuge. And the only person that woman that he seems to care for is his actual grandmother

[00:25:55] and trying to keep her safe from his grandfather. Right. But all the women that he's talking to, sleeping with, messing over, like they're just all treated horribly. Is that an accurate reflection of what it is to be a man or a young man growing up in Jamaica and how you interact interpersonally with women? I won't say you like them. You might like sleeping with them, but that you obviously don't like.

[00:26:24] For me, it was like at that point in my life, like they normalize abuse on so many different levels that you come to feel that it's almost wrong for you not to abuse women or show affection. Like if you show affection or if you open up, be honest about your feelings or treat a girl too nice, then you're seen as being weak.

[00:26:50] Because I remember in the first chapter, that's where the story began to flow. Like I just had that picture of Niger on the bus with Dreeni, but it wasn't moving until I struck upon the expression of to be seen as nice is almost a death sentence. And as soon as I wrote that, then everything just came out

[00:27:19] because I found the impetus of the story and I could go back to the ugliness of what I experienced in an all-boys high school where it was almost a dare to see how far you could go with negativity towards females. So as soon as I struck upon that expression, then I realized what the book would be about.

[00:27:49] Niger trying to find that center and failing. Mm-hmm. And then even in the chorus of voices from the women in the book, they all have this certain level of acceptance. There's Niger's friend from high school who's now his boss, Brianna. And, you know, they end up having an affair because he is supposed to be with Dreeni. And even Brianna's like, you know, I'm settling to be the second woman with this man.

[00:28:19] Every woman has to make that similar kind of choice. And then even with the neighbor by Niza's grandparents' home, she has a man and then she's doing stuff on the side to make money. And I'm just like, the sex is so rampant, but it's also not out of consent of pleasure, but necessity for economic survival. Right, right. Is that also what you were trying to show,

[00:28:47] how hard living in this toxic masculinity is for the women around them? That even though they are abused within the system, they also contribute in some ways to their own dehumanization and abuse? Yeah, yeah, exactly. They contribute to how they're treated and they give as much as they get, put it that way.

[00:29:12] There is that whole thing of girls actually going for the abusive guys because part of it is they know they're living in this patriarchal society that is very abusive to them, but they have to make that ugly choice of choosing the guy that can protect them in a way. Not to veer too much away from your point,

[00:29:39] but just to make that point of many girls making that choice of going with the bad guy because they want to feel secure. So in that way, they compromise something of themselves in order to get security. So it most... Perpetuates the patriarchy. Right. It perpetuates the patriarchy and most relationships are predicated on that transactional kind of thing where the girl goes with this kind of guy.

[00:30:08] Within certain communities, because not all of Jamaica is like that, but in certain areas like where I'm from, core Montego Bay, that's how the girls are. That's how they're raised. That's the kind of peer pressure they experience that kind of sends them in that direction. In addition to the rampant patriarchy and the abuse of women, there's also rampant homophobia. Like it was a lot. Right.

[00:30:36] And I'm aware that that is a very real rendering of parts of Jamaica. Right. And you talking about being very sensitive to the things that you were around growing up. Right. Was it hard for you to even put those scenes into the book and recreate in the world that you grew up in with as harsh a reality as you could give any reader? It was. Like when I was writing Death Register,

[00:31:07] that the idea was to make that at the core, the reactive violence of homosexuals, toughening up, so to speak, like reacting to an extremely homophobic society by becoming the aggressors themselves, because that is still very much a phenomenon in northwestern Jamaica. And it was always fascinating to me,

[00:31:35] but it wasn't something I could share with my friends because we would always see these homosexual gangsters like at parties or at the mall. And it was almost surreal because we knew, being Jamaicans, that the society is very homophobic. Homophobic, but then these guys could commandeer this space for themselves. And you couldn't even look in their direction without feeling threatened.

[00:32:03] So I was always fascinated by that, but I couldn't really share it with my friends because you don't know how they're going to react. Right. Because everyone is looking at it. You have to look over your shoulder. You can't say certain things to certain people, put it that way. Okay. So I tried to put that into the first book, but it didn't feel right. That wasn't the story. So I transferred that to my own dear people.

[00:32:32] And that's where that theme flourished with the car wash crew, because that was actually a real thing at my high school. So I could really mine into that because it all just came back to me very vividly. And putting all of this together and all of these different themes from the outside looking in and your own reflection points,

[00:32:59] the novel ends with Nija basically resigning himself to his life and his life with Drini, who is now pregnant. And the baby may not even be his, right? Right. It's not. In my mind, it's not. Right. It's probably not. But they're together and she's got a baby on the way and he's just going to accept it because he feels bad for all the BS that he's put her through.

[00:33:29] Right. Right. Is there any redemption or redeeming for them available or for Nija specifically? I think for Nija, it gives him a more settled life because he knew Brianna wasn't the girl for him. Because when I was creating her character, she was more of a man eater, as you Americans say, than the other girls. But through the editing, I softened her a bit. From the get-go,

[00:33:59] Drini was the girl for Nija because they're like foils. So, Drini keeps him level-headed. She gives him a sense of responsibility and keeps his moral compass where it's supposed to be because for all he's put her through, part of his attraction to her or part of his loyalty to her is the fact that he's done her wrong in so many ways. So,

[00:34:29] the relationship is almost a kind of cathartic thing for him, a kind of service in a way. It's based on more than just love, I think, or love for them is a complicated thing. I don't think love enters the picture. See, for my reading, it was very toxic, very struggle love, if we're going to use that word at all. Struggle love, right. I was like, whew, this was a lot. So, I want to switch to a speed round and a game

[00:34:58] before I let you go for the morning or the night for where you are in Japan. Okay. What is your favorite book? A House for Mr. Biswas, V.S. Naipaul. Who is your favorite author? V.S. Naipaul. Who is your favorite poet? I would say George Lamming, although he's not necessarily a poet. If money were no object, where would you go, what would you do, and where would you live? Wow. Well, I'd be living in Japan with my family. I think I belong here, but I would definitely go to Brazil

[00:35:27] to see Carnival. So, name three things on your bucket list. Go to Barbados, see where George Lamming used to live. I'm a big George Lamming fan. Attend the World Cup soccer game. That's what, two? And three, travel to Europe. I've never been there. You are all the way in Japan and have not been to Europe. Like, you skipped a whole continent. Right. It's crazy. That's crazy. They're connected. I know.

[00:35:59] What brings you joy? My son, just growing up, becoming his own person. And what brings you peace? Writing something that's good. So, our game is called Rewriting the Classics. Classic is however you define it. Name one book you wished you would have written. A House for Mr. Biswell's. Nightfall is a genius. Name one book where you want to change the ending and how would you do it? Maybe in the Castle of My Skin, George Lamming, I would have him stay in Barbados

[00:36:28] and face the post-colonial society instead of escaping to somewhere else. And name a book that you think is overrated or overtaught and why. Maybe a Clockwork Orange just feels messy to me. And so, my final question for you today is when you are dead and gone and among the ancestors, what would you like someone to write about the legacy of words and work that you've left behind?

[00:36:58] That what I wrote made them laugh because I remember the first time I felt that that twinge to write it was when I read Naipaul's Miguel Street and the sentences were so punchy and energetic and funny. And like, whoa, I didn't know like, a stand-up comic could be a novelist. So yeah, just to say that something I wrote made them laugh.

[00:37:29] Big thank you to Dwight Thompson for being here today on Black & Published. Make sure you check out Dwight's novel, My Own Dear People, out now from Akashic Books. And you can get a copy of the novel from Mahogany Books and get 10% off your first purchase using code BLACKPUB at checkout. That's B-L-K-P-U-B. That's our show for the week. If you liked this episode and want more Black & Published, head to our Instagram page. It's at Black & Published

[00:37:59] and that's B-L-K-P-U-B-U-B. There, I've posted a bonus clip from my interview with Dwight about how he's made peace with his difficult boyhood in Montego Bay. Make sure you check it out and let me know what you think in the comments. I'll holla at y'all next week when our guests will be Kiese Lehman and Alexis Franklin, the author and illustrator of the new children's picture book City Summer, Country Summer. I grew up as a Black boy in these Black boy communities where we just were tender.

[00:38:29] Like, yeah, we fought and some people got to shoot. But we still loved each other's touch and I just don't see enough art like pausing to think about the importance of touch of all kinds in Black communities. And so like, you know, if I'm going to make art, I want to make art that kind of encourages us to reconsider the power of touch. That's next week on Black & Published. I'll talk to you then. Peace.

[00:39:05] What's going on, family? This is Derek Young and Ramonda Young, owners of both Mahogany Books and the Mahogany Books Podcast Network. We really want to thank each and every one of you for listening to this episode and if you enjoyed what you just heard, drop us a review and rate us on whatever platform you download podcasts on. We truly appreciate each and every one of you for supporting us and making us your go-to for Black books and we look forward to connecting with you all sometime in the future. Thank you again, fam and always remember Black Books Matter.