Lawrence Hill, Broom Dancer, R&B, Messages, and Interpretation
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/07/30
Lawrence Hill is one of Canada’s most distinguished and published authors. In this extensive interview, we discuss everything in Hill’s purview. In his words, “I have to say that I don’t think I’ve ever been interviewed by somebody who had such a profound grasp of such a wide variety of things that I’ve shared, written, or spoken about whether they are personal, professional or things to do with my books or my family life.” This series will explore his life and philosophy, just for you, part 11.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: In the Hill household, you are known as the broom dancer, especially to some good R&B music. You mentioned the playful tone of A.A. Milne’s Disobedience. What R&B music? What is the family reaction to this fun and silliness? What is the relationship between fun and silliness, and good prose?
Lawrence Hill: All great R&B music whether Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, and everything in between. There were several forms of music that dominated my childhood: jazz, blues (thanks to my mother and father), and R&B music. R&B music was ascendant as I entered into the teenage years, which was natural for anyone in my generation. I’m 59. It was a musical household. I played poorly.
My brother went on to become a professional musician. My parents weren’t musicians. However, they played music in the house and sang all the time. R&B, jazz, and blues were staples of our musical expression in the living room and the kitchen in the household. It affected all of the children. My brother, sister, and I were affected profoundly. It emerges in our work too.
Playfulness and silliness is vital. You could not love well without being relaxed and able to be playful. You cannot learn language well if you’re too uptight and unwilling to make mistakes. One key to learning new languages is willingness to make mistakes and make a fool of yourself. Of course, if you’re a child or an infant, you do not need to worry about those things. You haven’t learned those worries.
You have to relax to love well. You have to relax to learn language. In my experience, you have to relax to produce good art. You have to be able to be fun, silly, playful, and to rejoice in life in all of its forms.
If you do not relax, you will not get the most out of your mind. As a writer, you should be rejoicing in human play and the play of language.
I tend to be too serious most of the time. So, people like to see me fool around, dance with brooms, and play with and entertain children – who are now grown. They still like to see it. My father was an incredibly serious man in his role as a human rights activist and historian. He would wind down by watching Westerns, boxing, or track-and-field on television, maybe football.
He would holler at the TV. He needed to relax to be able to go back the next day to work that was often soul crushing. Most people who have healthy balance in life would appreciate and need to be silly and playful. It takes a certain amount of trust to know that the people around you will not judge or despise you because you are letting your guard down in being playful and silly.
Without that, there’s no hope for humanity.
(Laugh)
Jacobsen: If we take The Book of Negroes, The Illegal, Blood: The Stuff of Life, and Dear Sir, I intend to Burn Your Book, you more well-known works at least. What is the main message or set of messages that you wish to get across?
I always have trouble answering that type of question. I do not think about the message with a capital “M” when I write a work of fiction. Let’s set aside non-fiction for a minute, that is a little different. Readers do not like to be preached at or to be told what to think or feel. One stance to take as a writer is to assume that your reader is smarter than you. The reader does not need to be lectured on how to read or interpret things.
People come to their own conclusions. Present the story that you are able to present. Most discriminating readers react negatively to being held by the hand and told how to read, and having everything explained to them. It is dangerous to come to the job with a message to hammer into the heads of your, in my case, readers.
I do not begin writing a novel with the idea of disseminating a set of messages. Most writers of fiction hope that their messages will be a happy byproduct of drama. In my fiction, I meditate on the resilience of the human spirit and the miracle of being caring and loving even after suffering abuses of the worst kinds. Millions of people continue to display that resilience today. It is not Aminata Diallo or Keita Ali alone.
Many, many of them are showing the same resilience Aminata showed in The Book of Negroes. One message is to pause and appreciate the resilience of the human spirit. I do not try to jam that into the prose or attempt to willfully insert a message. I try to write a story. I hope that somehow between the lines the reader will divine the other things.
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Larry.
I thank you for your time. I have to say that I don’t think I’ve ever been interviewed by somebody who had such a profound grasp of such a wide variety of things that I’ve shared, written, or spoken about whether they are personal, professional, or things to do with my books or my family life. I’ve been quite astounded by the reach of your work and I can only imagine that you’ve invested a huge amount of time in getting your head around a person’s life and expressions, in this case mine. Thank you for that.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
In-Sight Publishing 