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333 8 / Contemporary African American Paraliterature: Science/Speculative Fiction, Gay/Lesbian, and Detective/Mystery Novels and Romances (1983–2001) Chester Himes has said that the black people in this country are the only new race in modern times and I think that’s probably true. Nothing in history quite happened like it happened here. I think that the young black writer draws from this experience instead of looking over his shoulder to Homer or to the Latins as white writers do, at least many of them. I think that’s the difference. ishmael reed In John O’Brien, Interviews with Black Writers T HE 1980s and 1990s marked a renaissance in the tradition of the African American novel. On one hand, we witnessed the extraordinary critical success of Alice Walker, Gloria Naylor, Charles Johnson, and Toni Morrison for their experiments with nonrepresentational modernism and antirepresentational postmodernism.1 On the other hand, with the overwhelming response of black and crossover white readers, especially women, we saw the astounding commercial success of contemporary representational African American romances and paraliterature. Paraliterature ranges from pulp fiction and formulaic adventure stories to extraterrestrial journeys and apolitical romances. It includes the transgeneric novels of science/speculative fiction by Samuel Delany and Octavia Butler and the detective/mystery novels by Walter Mosley, as well as the gay novels by E. Lynn Harris and straight romances by Terry McMillan. On the New York Times bestseller list for thirty-eight weeks, McMillan’s 1992 romance Waiting to Exhale sold 700,000 copies in hardcover and 3 million in paperback. Due in part to the Oprah Winfrey Book Club, black American authors and books, especially novels and romances by women, had astounding success in the marketplace and unprecedented impact on the lives of readers. According to the American Booksellers Association, 90 percent of the 9.9 million black adults who were regular buyers of fiction in 2000 were women.2 But what is the relationship of the success of popular, mass market representational and vernacular literature and what Samuel Delany calls “paraliterature ,” which is generally derived from “pulp magazines, outside the traditional realms of literature,”3 to literary art? This relationship is complicated when the 334 Contemporary African American Paraliterature (1983–2001) meaning of paraliterature is extended to include some radically sensational, anti-establishment, sexually and morally transgressive underground and counterculture literature published by little magazines and small presses for limited target audiences. But the central question remains: Can both paraliterature and critically acclaimed serious and experimental novels become popular, commercially successful best-sellers? Of course, some representatives of each, like Harris ’s Just as I Am and Walker’s Color Purple, have; others, like Larry Duplechan’s Eight Days a Week and Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo, have not. How does the representation of race, class, gender, and sexuality, especially the problems of the color line and identity formation, in African American science/speculative, gay/lesbian , and detective/mystery novels and romances influence the type and degree of success they achieve? How significant are the residually oral forms of oratory (including the vernacular), myth (including ritual), legend, tale, and song to the distinctiveness of these extended narratives? How are the issues of narrative authenticity and authority as well as political and moral agency addressed by authors and received by audiences in these subgenres? How is the relationship among language, knowledge, and power represented in them? These questions about the production and reception of literary genres and standards are still very important for many readers—especially students, writers, and literary critics —even as we enter the third millennium. This chapter will therefore explain the manner and degree to which some of the black authors of paraliterature create a space for themselves within the tradition of the African American novel. In contrast to the formal, traditional standards established by literary institutions and academies for canonical literature, the standards of the parallel tradition of popular, mass market, vernacular literature and paraliterature are governed by formulaic, commercial, and practical interests. Many readers of paraliterature are more interested in whether a book is readable, exciting, and entertaining, than whether it is authentic, authoritative, and empowering. However , if we assume that literature is writing highly valued by different audiences , and if we interpret specific genres of narrative by focusing on the deployment of rhetorical and discursive practices in texts, then we should be concerned with how both canonical and paraliterary narratives are organized and developed. We should also be concerned with the speci...

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