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Acknowledgements
Some time in early 2003 I sat down at the manual typewriter in the day room of Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin, California. The vintage Olivetti was much like the one on which I’d learned to type in Mr Fink’s class (yes, that was his name) in high school in 1963.
I’d just finished reading The Da Vinci Code and was longing for my family and community in southern Africa, where I’d lived for nearly 20 years as a fugitive. I had an idea for a novel about an historian going to Zimbabwe in the early 1980s. I’d never written a novel before. New environments create new occupations.
My first few words on the Olivetti were barely visible. The 100000-mile warranty on that tattered ribbon had definitely expired. The authorities told me no backup was available. Then they outlined the myriad steps required to obtain a new one. I filled out the first round of request slips for a replacement. I was certain my fiction fantasy wouldn’t appear in legible print for quite a while.
I had made a rookie’s miscalculation, and discounted convict ingenuity. The ribbon was not dead.
‘If you put baby oil on it,’ one veteran inmate told me, ‘it will squeeze out the last drop of ink.’
Sure enough, an hour of the baby oil treatment breathed life into that fading black nylon. A few months and several baby oil sessions later, a totally inadequate first draft emerged. I sent it to my mother. She liked it. A mother always does, even when her son has been a fugitive for 27 years. I figured my story could just rest there. Besides, the ribbon’s ink had dissipated beyond the reach of baby oil.
Then my months of pestering prison bureaucrats paid off. Two brand new ribbons arrived. My project resuscitated, I spent hours enjoying the clear, crisp letters filling the pages of my redraft. I had a new companion.
The manuscript travelled with me to four prisons over the next three years. It passed from a manual typewriter to an electric typewriter to a computer disk. By late 2006 I had a 300-page printout of draft number six of my masterpiece.
With great anticipation, I sent it to Judy Kendall, a woman I taught with in Zimbabwe in the early 1980s. She was just finishing a doctorate in Literature. I thought she’d be able to appreciate my wonderful tale. She read it, then returned it with some not so kind comments. She politely told me it wasn’t a novel. The characters were solid wood; the dialogue was flat, the story went nowhere. She had a laundry list of recommendations.
By that time I’d lost some of my enthusiasm and all access to technology. If I wanted to incorporate any of Judy’s suggestions, I’d have to write by hand. Fortunately, I guess, I was at Deuel Vocational Institution where, save for short walks to the dining hall twice a day, your cell is your life. I beavered away on my top bunk, targeting 20 pages a day. In a little over a month I had 570 pages of manuscript. What the hell could I do with this monstrous pile of paper?
I worked up the courage to ask Judy to look at it one more time, apologising profusely for its handwritten state, then again for the horrors of my particular script. Luckily for me, it’s hard to say ‘no’ to an incarcerated friend, though if letters could sigh with consternation, Judy’s would have. I then convinced an
other friend, Roger Dunscombe from Melbourne, Australia, to take a look. He’d also been a teacher in Zimbabwe in the 1980s.
I’ll never forget Judy’s response to the new version: ‘I think you’ve cracked it.’ She spoke of future reviews, book signing parties. Roger got even more carried away, connecting me to the tradition of Steinbeck and Dos Passos. When you’re in prison, a few words of ridiculous hyberbole never go unappreciated.
So there I sat with this stack of 570 handwritten pages in the early 21st century, the Information Age. Would any agent or publisher take a peek at this thing in such a state? Doubtful.
Enter what I came to call the ‘Magnificent Seven’: my mother-in-law, Pat Barnes-McConnell, long-time friend Stephen Morrow in Sydney and his five-person Aussie typing pool: Rhonda Fadden, Ann Peterson, Greg Peterson, Isla Tooth and Margaret Waller.
I sent the 570 pages to Pat in Michigan. She copied them and mailed them off to Stephen and company. They typed it in batches, Stephen put them together and emailed the product back to Pat. At that time the authorities in my new home, High Desert State Prison, introduced new mail restrictions: no one could receive more than 10 pages in one envelope. Petty admin rules don’t stop a determined mother-in-law. She reduced them, copied front and back, giving me 4 pages to each piece of paper, 40 pages per envelope. She dutifully mailed 10 packets, each within the 10-page maximum allowed.
Like all authors, I wasn’t quite satisfied with what I’d produced. I didn’t know if the bounds of friendship could extend into corrections and editorial changes. I guiltily made manual cuts and pastes and rewrote a couple of chapters by hand. At some point I’m sure the typing pool thought they’d entered a tunnel with no exit – endless therapy for their imprisoned taskmaster.
In the meantime, multitasking Stephen approached Umuzi Publishers in Cape Town, asking them if they would consider my novel. They agreed, though Stephen warned them it might be awhile before a printed version landed in their office.
After three rounds of back and forth with changes, I made it to the end of the rainbow. Stephen sat down for about 20 hours, did the final corrections and sent it off to Umuzi. A couple of weeks later, they were talking contract. We Are All Zimbabweans Now had entered the final stage of its journey. That inmate jumping for joy in the day room at High Desert State Prison was me, though I never told a soul why.
Obviously this book could never have gotten very far without the Magnificent Seven, plus Judy and Roger. How they managed to find hours to deal with my manuscript in their already overfilled lives I will never know. I am forever grateful.
At the same time, an inmate-writer can only sustain the effort with emotional as well as technical support. Unlike most of the 2.3 million prisoners in the United States, I have had the boundless love and nurture of family, friends, comrades and well-wishers.
First among them all comes my mother, Barbara Kilgore. For the 27 years during which I was on the run, she never lost faith, remaining loving and loyal. For most of that time my father, Robert Kilgore, stood at her side. He passed away in 2000, having seen his only child just once in the last quarter-century of his life. I hope I can honour them a little by my writing.
The other bulwark behind my prison writing has been the loving presence and intellectual inspiration of my wife, Terri Barnes. She shouldered the multiple burdens of single parenting, becoming the fount of strength for our two courageous sons, Lewis and Lonnie. She led them as they braved the alien and hostile territory of visiting rooms, prison-regulated phone calls, harassing reporters, and painstaking court appearances. Then, she always had insightful comments about history and fiction to keep me on track. Without the will of my family to continue to succeed in life despite the intrusion of my capture, I would never have risen to the state of mind necessary for creative production.
The four of us have not been alone. Buoyed by her faith and the support of her church, Pat Barnes-McConnell lent support far beyond the flawless copying and mailing of the manuscript. Let no one ever say an unkind word about mothers-in-law in my presence. Her husband, Dave McConnell, has been equally steadfast and loving in his unique way.
Then comes a network of all those who sent letters, books, postcards, calendars, and visited me in various uncordial venues. In South Africa this network also provided companionship and sympathetic ears for Terri, as well as much needed
