Kind One

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The author would like to acknowledge the particular inspiration he derived from reading Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, by Harriet A. Jacobs; The Known World (not limited to but in particular its eleventh page), by Edward P. Jones; The Palm-Wine Drinkard, by Amos Tutuola; and Marguerite Yourcenar’s “Reflections on the Composition” of Memoirs of Hadrian. He would also like to note that the long-germinating seed for this novel of revolt was planted in 1990 in a seminar he took with Professor Richard Blackett at Indiana University, which addressed, among other slavery-related subjects, the causes and consequences of the Haitian Revolution.

Crucial support in the writing of Kind One was received from the division of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Denver.

In the evening she would tell it. In the dusk light, when the candles were lit and the fire was low, she would clear her throat. When the windows were closed and the curtains drawn and the children tucked, she would set in to speak. When we had all gathered close, when our shoulders had touched, when we had taken her hands, when we had drawn in our breath. When we had shut tight our eyes, when we had thought of our days, the years of our suffering, our joy in the sunshine, that time by the water, cool drops on our foreheads, warm bread in our mouths. When we had all been spared, when our crops had come in, when the storm had stepped past, when we had said all our prayers. When the night stretched before us, she would open her tale.

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