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But sometimes I read books with magic, in other lands, and I think that if I had left home younger, I could have found a better life, because that is what the heroes are always doing. There are enemies and monsters to be fought, but at the end of that, there is always a better life. And I also read horror books because the world is full of terrors, of things that eat you, of people who look at you with eyes like fangs, and after each story of horror, I am grateful. I have lived the horror in my mind and survived it, and I am stronger, more alive. And I even love those books you whites so enjoy, about how to improve every aspect of yourself, how to cure your wife’s unhappiness by thanking her and making her feel special for the chores women have done since the dawn of time, and how to look in the mirror and admire the man staring back at you as if Jesus were just behind the glass, whispering that you are perfect. When I read them, I see myself as a wealthy general with a dozen happy wives and a hundred adoring children, and I picture a national disaster and everyone asking me for the solution, and I realize that I would be as good if not better than any other man to lead my people. Even after I wake from this dream, I don’t feel deceived, and for days afterward, I walk a little lighter. But in truth, I prefer books of the technological future in which we can repair anything, even our bodies and our minds, or go to other planets, and I am sad because I was born too early and because these stories—which will someday happen without me—they tell me the truth of how soon my life will be forgotten.
WHITE
DENI ELLIS BÉCHARD
with an afterword by
Simisola Batta
MILKWEED EDITIONS
All of the events and characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales, as well as to the author himself, are included only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously.
© 2018, Text by Deni Ellis Béchard
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher: Milkweed Editions, 1011 Washington Avenue South, Suite 300, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55415.
(800)520-6455
Published 2018 by Milkweed Editions
Printed in Canada
Cover design by Mary Austin Speaker
18 19 20 21 22 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition
Milkweed Editions, an independent nonprofit publisher, gratefully acknowledges sustaining support from the Jerome Foundation; the Lindquist & Vennum Foundation; the McKnight Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts; the Target Foundation; and other generous contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals. Also, this activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund, and a grant from Wells Fargo. For a full listing of Milkweed Editions supporters, please visit milkweed.org.
Names: Béchard, Deni Ellis, 1974- author.
Title: White : a novel / Deni Ellis Béchard.
Description: First edition. | Minneapolis, Minnesota : Milkweed Editions, [2018]
Identifiers: LCCN 2017051227 (print) | LCCN 2017054897 (ebook) | ISBN 9781571319470 (ebook) | ISBN 9781571311252 (paper : alk. paper)
Classification: LCC PR9199.4.B443 (ebook) | LCC PR9199.4.B443 W48 2018 (print) | DDC 813/.6--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017051227
Milkweed Editions is committed to ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book production practices with this principle, and to reduce the impact of our operations in the environment. We are a member of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the world’s endangered forests and conserve natural resources. White was printed on acid-free 100% postconsumer-waste paper by Friesens Corporation.
The world had prepared no place for you, and if the world had its way, no place would ever exist. Now, this is true for everyone, but, in the case of a Negro, this truth is absolutely naked: if he deludes himself about it, he will die. This is not the way this truth presents itself to white men, who believe the world is theirs and who, albeit unconsciously, expect the world to help them in the achievement of their identity. But the world does not do this—for anyone; the world is not interested in anyone’s identity. And, therefore, the anguish which can overtake a white man comes in the middle of his life, when he must make the almost inconceivable effort to divest himself of everything he has ever expected or believed, when he must take himself apart and put himself together again, walking out of the world, into limbo, or into what certainly looks like limbo.
—JAMES BALDWIN,NOBODY KNOWS MY NAME
I was cut to the quick at the idea of having lost the inestimable privilege of listening to the gifted Kurtz. Of course I was wrong. The privilege was waiting for me. Oh yes, I heard more than enough. And I was right, too. A voice. He was very little more than a voice. And I heard—him—it—this voice—other voices—all of them were so little more than voices—and the memory of that time itself lingers around me, impalpable, like a dying vibration of one immense jabber, silly, atrocious, sordid, savage, or simply mean, without any kind of sense.
—JOSEPH CONRAD,HEART OF DARKNESS
CONTENTS
3 LITERATURE CONNECTS US TO THE EARTH
4 ROOM 22(2) & THE WILDLIFE OF ASPEN
