From All Over Creation.

With special consideration to The Fisher King, Scribner, October 2000, $23.00, ISBN 0-684-87283-8

In a manner that can only be described as luminous, Paule Marshall's literary work spans time and geography to embrace history from the Caribbean to the Deep South to the mean streets of Bedford-Stuyvesant, the section of Brooklyn where she was born to Barbadian immigrant parents. Toni Cade Bambara once described Marshall as "the writer of our far-flung diaspora." More than forty years ago, the novelist debuted with her now classic Brown Girl, Brownstones (1959) and row, after more than forty years her work includes novels, short stories and literary essays.

In her new novel The Fisher King, four generations and three continents converge on Macon Street in Bed-Stuy because of one eight-year-old boy, born and raised in Paris, who emerges as the hope of an estranged and conflicted family. In 1949, his grandfather, Sonny-Rett Payne, a Caribbean American jazz pianist, defies his family's assimilationist values and the racist climate of the postwar United States by moving to Paris. There, with his African American wife, their daughter Jojo, and the "other woman" in Sonny-Rett's life, his business manager Hattie, he leads a successful if unconventional life, until tragedy strikes. As the novel opens, Hattie, who has become caretaker for Jojo's son, brings the boy to see the land of his grandparents for the first time.

"I wanted a character who would link the generations and bring us through to the twenty-first century," says Marshall. "I wanted to contrast [the child's] innocence with the questionable motives of the adults who profess to love him. I wanted to explore the complex, sometimes selfish agendas people bring to love, even when the object of that love is a child."

The boy, named Sonny after his grandfather, also represents a virtual gathering of the tribes in his Caribbean, African and African American bloodlines. For Marshall, he symbolizes the need for unity in the diaspora, "a unity we must achieve if we are ever going to wield significant power in the world." As his African American great-grandmother says, "What you gonna do with all that Colored from all over creation in you? Better be somethin' good."

Conflict in the neighborhood is the historical backdrop of the past against which the contemporary story is played. There is, however, another story that Marshall presents--that of a Bedford-Stuyvesant vibrant with the strains of jazz. "It is a well-kept secret, but my little corner of Brooklyn was a mecca for jazz during the forties and fifties," she says. "This in spite of the conservative nature of the community. I've wanted to write about it for a long time, to pay homage to the guys and the few women who braved community and family disapproval and became dedicated jazz musicians. Some made it big: Max Roach, Cecil Payne, Ernie Henry, Randy Weston. I remember often walking down Stuyvesant Avenue, and running into Max standing chatting to friends. The brilliant Bud Powell played the Putnam Central Club, a well-known local jazz spot. So did Prez [Lester Young] who used to say `Ding-dong' instead of `Hello' when you greeted him. I had a massive crush on the trumpeter Kenny Dorham, who appeared at the Putnam. These (are) precious memories."

Marshall's mission as a writer has been to preserve and safeguard the precious memories of black culture throughout the hemisphere. In her latest novel, she draws on the Arthurian legend of the Fisher King, who, weak and ill, waits in his castle for the knight who will heal and invigorate him. The Fisher King is the grandfather, Sonny-Rett Payne. In the visual art that gives him solace, little Sonny draws himself as a knight guarding a castle within which his grandfather waits.

Marshall brings her considerable skills to bear in capturing a multitude of voices; these, along with her vivid descriptions of the musicians and their music, and of Paris and Brooklyn, gives the novel its heft and humor. At its conclusion, one wonders about the future of the community.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brooklyn College, Marshall has taught at Yale, Columbia and the famed Iowa Writers' Workshop. At present, she holds a distinguished chair in the creative writing program at New York University, where her popular New Generation Reading Series has introduced such gifted young writers as Edwidge Danticat, Shay Youngblood and Colson Whitehead.

Among the numerous prizes and awards Marshall has received, is the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 1992. She remembers receiving the phone call with the news and being too stunned to speak. "Then I started shouting like a madwoman and couldn't stop. I called my son, who lives in London, and the two of us were shouting for joy across the Atlantic. It wasn't just the money that came with the award, which was enough to solve all my financial problems for life. It was the recognition accorded the work: proof positive that I had achieved everything I had set out to do as a writer."

"There is an image I hold in my mind," Marshall explains. "Young black women or men, aware of the unflattering images of themselves in the larger society, happen to read a book of mine. They discover characters with whom they identify, people seen in their full human weight and complexity. This gives them a sense of their right to be in world. That personal empowerment enables them to take the next giant step and work toward the larger empowerment of the community." She laughs, realizing the enormity of the responsibility she has claimed for her work. "Ambitious, but I have to try to spell it out in those terms," she adds. "I believe that serious fiction can be an agent for positive change."

Paule Marshall

Paule Marshall's novel and short stories bring to life remarkable and colorful characters coming to terms with their hybrid existence between the Caribbean and American.

Brown Girl, Brownstones Feminist Press, April 1996, $12.95, ISBN 1-558-61149-5

The Chosen Place, the Timeless People Vintage Books, October 1984, $15.00, ISBN 0-394-72633-2

Praisesong for the Widow Penguin Books, October 1992, $12.95, ISBN 0-452-26711-0

Daughters Plume Books, October 1992, $13.95, ISBN 0-452-26912-1

R. Erica Doyle is a poet, writer, teacher and New Yorker of Trinidadian descent. Her work has appeared in numerous publications nationwide, including: Callaloo, Sinister Wisdom, Blithe House Quarterly, Ms. Magazine, The Washington Blade and Women In The Life. She is currently pursuing an M.F.A. in poetry at the New School in New York City. Her reflections on Paule Marshall's new book and insightful discussion with the author begin.