{"id":69138,"date":"2020-08-20T00:21:08","date_gmt":"2020-08-20T04:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/?p=69138"},"modified":"2020-09-17T19:40:29","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T23:40:29","slug":"i-arrogantly-recommend-by-tom-bowden-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/2020\/08\/20\/i-arrogantly-recommend-by-tom-bowden-6\/","title":{"rendered":"I arrogantly recommend… by Tom Bowden"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Darkly: Black History and America\u2019s Gothic Soul <\/em>
\nby Leila Taylor, Restless Books<\/p>\n

I quite like the idea of me emerging from my mother\u2019s womb and handing my dad a calling card reading I AM THE NIGHT [\u2018Leila\u2019 in Arabic]. It makes my morbid predilections inevitable, genetic even\u2014a predisposition to horror movies, black nail polish and a preference for the Cure. I was destined to smoke clove cigarettes and write bad poetry under bridges in the rain. I am Darkness.
\n\u2014Leila Taylor, Darkly<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The sense of the gothic is one of emotional extreme, usually depressive or horrifying. European gothic, using Matthew Gregory Lewis\u2019s The Monk<\/a><\/em> (1796) as my ur-text, replaced the tragic fate and political satire of classical literature with cynicism toward all forms of authority\u2014including and especially the State, Church, and family. In Oedipus Rex<\/em>, for instance, Oedipus is fated to unwittingly kill his father and marry his mother and<\/em> face the consequences for violating societal taboos in doing so, even though he was unaware of the relationship. The gothic version of that story would have Oedipus know from the start who the targets of his desires were, that what he desired was evil and wrong\u2014and do it anyhow, the consequences of which would be worse and rightly earned. In gothic literature, the pillars of society have ossified into delusional hypocrisy or coagulated into wormy corruption.<\/p>\n

Leila Taylor\u2019s Darkly: Black History and America\u2019s Gothic Soul<\/em> sets U.S. culture atop a House of Usher-like superstructure of Black oppression, examining slavery, white supremacy, and national trauma as pain and triumph is transformed into music, fashion, literature, and history.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started this project,\u201d Taylor writes, \u201cwith this intent of researching the Black goth scene and what it was like to be a part of a subculture perceived as being \u2018white,\u2019 how it felt to navigate a world where you are twice marginalized when you are the only one in the room.\u201d Although seemingly premised on examining Black appreciation of Goth music, that premise quickly widens to encompass more: \u201cthe particulars may morph but the foundation is the same; an anachronistic romanticism, theatrical melancholia, nocturnality, campy morbidity, and the color black.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Logo for Renaissance High School, Detroit<\/p><\/div>\n

Taylor\u2019s sense of goth began developing when she lived in Detroit, where she grew up until she was 15. \u201cI remember my first day at Renaissance High School,\u201d she told me in a text exchange, \u201cI saw this guy who looked just like Robert Smith and just fell in love immediately. My scene was pretty limited to my little circle of friends. It was all about Sam’s Jams record store, getting posters and pins and stuff at Noir Leather in Royal Oak and Smash Hits magazine really. I was aware of the [Detroit goth] scene, but kind of too young to be in<\/em> it. But I did go to concerts\u2014The Cure, The Smiths (I saw them on their Queen is Dead Tour at The Fox Theater), Depeche Mode. There was this music festival that took place every year behind my best friend\u2019s house called Dally in the Alley<\/a> which was amazing.\u201d She also enjoyed hanging at the DIA, \u201clooking at moody stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that felt the most gothic [about Detroit] was the atmosphere<\/a>. I remember there was this old gothic church downtown that I desperately wanted to live in. Then there were all the ruined houses, these burnt down houses, patches of overgrown empty lots. Victorian mansions with all the windows boarded up. I was too young to think about the economic and social reasons for that decay. It just felt kind of spooky and eerie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere really isn’t a codified genre that’s the equivalent to Southern Gothic for the Midwest or the North,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I do think there are themes of existential dread, of the loss of safety and security that is prevalent in American horror. I’m thinking about Shirley Jackson and internalized psychological horror. I think the idea of the \u2018monster\u2019 being psychic collective trauma rather than a literal boogieman or vampire is something that is a very modern American kind of gothic. I also think that there are [fears] of colonization, the fears that come with unjust displacement. I’m thinking of that old trope of the house built over an \u2018Indian burial ground.\u2019 And there is a particular kind of suburban horror we have in the Midwest. Suburbs created out of white flight that aren’t as safe as we thought they were.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her ideas and examples made me wonder if, given the Great Migration (1916-1970) from the rural South to the industrial North (i.e., Detroit, where she grew up), Taylor saw elements of specifically Southern Gothic origins in Detroit, and if so, whether the same Southern tropes are used or instead have been translated \/ metamorphosed into something (post) industrial, given that she distinguishes between Southern Gothic and post-Industrial American Gothic (using Detroit as her example).<\/p>\n

\u201cAt Renaissance High School, the school mascot was a Phoenix. Kind of can’t get more goth than that. The Black Gothicity of Detroit is the image of the city (and Black people) rising from the ashes over and over. It always comes back, it never dies. Like Black people there is a resilience to the city. Like that saying \u201cDetroit Hustles Harder.\u201d Well, so do Black people because we have to.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the strong points of Taylor\u2019s book is her effortless blending of the personal with the academic\u2014research, theory, and self-reflection combine in a real, lived consideration of what is<\/em>. Since many people mistakenly think \u201cacademic\u201d means cold and bloodless (when the opposite is almost always the case), I asked Taylor what she would you say to somebody who, though smart and talented, is leery that some passionate part of themselves will be somehow neutered by scholastic training?<\/p>\n

\u201cAcademic writing requires a kind of rigor by nature, and a career in academia requires being able to prove that you\u2019ve mastered that kind of writing and the ability to slide your work into the discourse. You have to prove that what you’re saying is important and that you are the person to say it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore I went back to grad school, I gave a paper at an academic conference as an \u2018independent scholar,\u2019 and after listening to the other talks I realized I didn\u2019t know what the fuck I was doing, so I went back to school to learn.<\/p>\n

\u201cI read more, I learned more. My ideas got richer and deeper and more complex and I developed the skills needed for this kind of critical thinking. So when I was writing my book, I was able to use what I learned to write the way I wanted to. I never wanted to write for an academic audience. I don’t want to be in academia. I don’t want my writing to be only accessible on Jstor or in an $80 journal. And I don’t like academic writing. It\u2019s alienating, but I wanted to learn the rules so I could break them. Having a little bit of training (for lack of a better word) in theory gave me the foundation to do what I wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taylor\u2019s book is wide-ranging and deep, academic and personal, and highly recommended.<\/p>\n