Chapters (31)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Room in the Dark I
- Fawns of the Diaspora Court Liliane in Paris, While Tabou Combo Whispers “Coq Qualité” in Her Ears
- Room in the Dark II
- “I Usedta Drink, Smoke and Do the Hoochie-Koo,” or What’s a Girl to Do When Her Mother Looks Like Ruth Brown
- Room in the Dark III
- “El Bochinche” es que only Fe Cortijo Knows or All the LeBron Brothers Know If Victor-Jésus María Sang Lili to Her Freedom
- Room in the Dark IV
- And Where Is Garnett Mimms?
- Room in the Dark V
- I Know Where Kansas City Is, But Did Wilbert Harrison Ever Get There?
- Room in the Dark VI
- Zoom Went the Strings of Liliane’s Heart, But Arsenio Rodriguez Could Have Told Her the Music Sounds Just as Sweet When We’re Blind and Still We See
- Room in the Dark VII
- I Know Where the E Train Stops But I’m “Sendin’ Out an S.O.S.” and I’m Not Edwin Starr Either
- Room in the Dark VIII
- “Happy, Happy Birthday, Baby” or Wouldn’t It Be Great If the Lead Singer of The Crests Wasn’t a White Boy and I Could Be My Mother?
- Room in the Dark IX
- Every Time My Lil World Seems Blue, I Just Haveta Look at You and Learn Eye-Hand Coordination
- Room in the Dark X
- “That’s Why I Love Her So and Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I Want to Know” or Why Jackie Wilson Died in Silence
- Room in the Dark XI
- There’s No Use Cryin’ “Forever” or Hyacinthe Returns from a Very Blue Holiday for Real B(l)ack at Ya
- Room in the Dark XII
- Lollie Struts Her Stuff Thru “The Sea of Love” or the Brides of Frankenstein Catch the Bouquet
- By Ntozake Shange
- Acknowledgments
- Copyright
——— No, I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on here.
———
———
——— Well, did you want to see what I’ve been doin’?
——— If that’s what you want, that’s what I want.
——— [She opens the little book eagerly, yet delicately.] See, these are parts of the letters Mommy sent me that I glued onto pages here and then drew or painted around them my feelings. That’s why I figured we’d have a book of our own, something we made together.
——— Even though you didn’t do it together?
——— We did do it together! She sent me what she had and I added what I had. Then, voil’agrave;, we have our book.
——— But she hasn’t seen the book, just like she hasn’t seen you.
——— Oh, damn you, shut up! Just shut up. I thought she was dead. I thought she didn’t love me. I thought she was lying somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean like dead slaves and runaways. Mother as an abstract idea is not foreign to me, you stupid muthafuckah. We made this book, you hear. My mommy and me made this book from pieces of our lives that I, Liliane Lincoln, put together. Do you understand that?
——— I understand as beautiful as this book is with its lace and watercolors, its singed edges and perfumed corners, it is made up of torn fragments and elusive memories that are yours alone.
——— But the crux of the little book is my mother’s letters, her letters to me.
——— Maybe so, but the book is yours.
——— You got that right. I put my name on everything I make. I sign everything.
——— What did your mother, S. Bliss, sign? Or was she such a metaphysical configuration that she left no visible traces of her presence?
——— Why are you being so horrid? My mother left me. That’s what she left. I’m her signature. I’m her emblem. Don’t you see?
——— No, I’m not sure I do.
——— Well, you should read the Book of Ruth in the Bible.
——— Why should I read the Book of Ruth, Lili?
——— See, this is what is wrong with “humanism.”
——— Lili…
——— Okay. Naomi told Orpah and Ruth to go on their way, to go back to their families because she as a mother-in-law had nothing to offer them anymore.
——— But I understand that Ruth refused to leave Naomi and lived happily ever after.
——— You are missing the whole point as it applies to me.
——— And how does it apply to you, Lili?
——— Well, my mommy, S. Bliss, knew it was better for us to see her dead than with a white man.
——— How is that, Lili?
——— Cause you could forgive somebody for dying, but not for runnin’ off with one of them. I would have been, oh my God, I would have been “blacklisted” of all things. It’s like having a baby out of wedlock. The black bourgeoisie takes these things very seriously.