Cover reveal: John R Gordon’s epic new novel of same gender love in slavery times, Drapetomania
Drapetomania n. (obs): the pathological psychological condition wherein a slave feels compelled to escape his master, however well that master treats him. Recommended treatment for this condition: firm discipline.
“When house-servant Abednego is sold away south, his heartbroken field-hand lover Cyrus snaps and flees the estate on which he has lived his entire life. Leaving everything he knows behind him, evading dogs and patrollers as he heads north, in the midst of a dismal swamp Cyrus receives the revelation that Abednego is his true North Star, and, impossible though it seems, he determines to find and rescue his lost lover from slavery.
Ten years in the writing, Drapetomania, Or The Narrative of Cyrus Tyler & Abednego Tyler, lovers, is an epic tale of black freedom, uprising, and a radical representation of romantic love between black men in slavery times.”
“[A] riveting, masterful work. Set against the brutalizing, material captivity meant to break the soul, that came to define the chattel enslavement of Africans in the American south, Drapetomania tells the compelling story of two men whose love for each other reimagines the erotic contours of what was possible under the whip and scrutiny of catastrophic bondage. Here is a story of love so powerful, so achingly present, it dares to consider not just the past but the future, as vital to freedom; and in doing so, defies any notion of the black enslaved body as an ugly, unpalatable thing, unworthy of the sweetness of love. Gordon’s novel enters the company of such classic works as Edward P. Jones’s The Known World, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, and Barry Unsworth’s Sacred Hunger. We will be reading and talking about this extraordinary novel for years to come.”
Alexis De Veaux (author of Yabo and Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde)
The Cover Shoot
One of my triggers for writing Drapetomania was coming across old, pre-twentieth century photographs of male couples online — ambivalent images, many of which, in the lack of biographical evidence, are beyond definite decoding. Were these men friends, comrades, brothers — or lovers, hiding in plain sight at a time where such love was both taboo and criminalized? Unsurprisingly, most of those captured in such photographs were white. One, however, (included in the book Dear Friends: American Photographs of Men Together, 1840–1918, by David Deitcher), showed two black men in US civil war uniforms, in a pose that might be one a couple would decide on, and for me this photograph became a catalyst for my novel, and the discovery of such an image its possible coda.
I decided to recreate — or rather create a variant image, in part so as not to trespass on someone else’s historical reality, albeit a forgotten one, in part to have greater control of nuance: to have the freedom to in particular ask my models to lean further into intimacy. I asked two very talented queer performers, Taofique Folarin and Urbain Hayo, both of whom had acted in plays of mine, to represent Cyrus and Abednego, and they kindly agreed to do so; and found a photographer, the wonderfully talented Jaroslav Scholtz, who had taken great pictures of a dear friend of mine, the author Diriye Osman, (for whom I did make-up effects), and whose portfolio included work in an old-fashioned black-&-white/sepia style. Another friend, the theatre and costume designer Jonathon Lipman, helped me source US Civil War uniforms — surprisingly heavy, in the way most old clothes were, as I discovered lugging them back slippery and hard to heft over one’s shoulder in polythene bags from Angels costume warehouse in Hendon, and later down to a small photographic studio under a railway arch in Deptford.
The shoot was at first slightly nerve-wracking — I don’t like telling people what to do — then fascinating and ultimately enjoyable. The uniforms created an instant authenticity and changed my models’ body language. Having done lots of fashion shoots Taofique had an instant sense of how to tweak and adjust what he was wearing; Urbain took a little longer, but soon got it right, and the difference between the more urbane Abednego (Taofique) and the rougher-edged Cyrus (Urbain) exactly suited the characters.
To capture the slightly blank look that all photographic portraits of that period (the 1860s) have, which is due to having to hold still for a ten-second exposure, Jaroslav, who is very hip to historical techniques, told our models he would take the photo ‘at some point after you hit your pose’. Taofique’s and Urbain’s faces naturally set slightly as the seconds ticked by, and the end effect was, we all agreed, instantly authentic. Jaroslav was alert to tidy and effective compositions; I guided our models towards poses suggesting intimacy and a relaxedness with each other within what would have been the formal setting of a photographic studio in 1862.
I had booked four hours, which had seemed like more than enough time when the brief was so clear, but somehow these things always start very slowly, and we soon found ourselves having to finish in a hurry: it would have been easy to spend another hour or so experimenting with poses. But Jaroslav had captured some wonderful images, and I knew we had several winners in there.
Interestingly some of what had seemed the most effective poses in the studio turned out to be too stylish, and therefore too modern; others lacked enough suggestion of romantic connection; and this slightly plain, slightly static yet gently intimate image was clearly the right one for the cover of the book.
Drapetomania by John R Gordon is out on 17th May 2018, pp 500, isbn 978–0995516274, rrp £15.99/$21.99 — available for preorder on Amazon now.
See more of Jaroslav’s work at jscholtz.com.
