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
N’importa porque, we have a party to go to now. The entire wedding has turned into a bomba with a southern drawl, a merengue with Mississippi improvisation capacity. The jump-up hitched on to a get-down blues. And Lollie and Granville parade the future of the race in their loose-hipped wedding beguine. And we are all here. Lollie, Granville, Rose Lynne and her East St. Louis fling; Hyacinthe and her songs; Bernadette and the Caribbean suitor learning her ways; Thayer with the catch of the day; Jean-René with his eyes all over Bernadette, and Roxie in the diaphanous gown of our memory; Sawyer in our souls as constant resistance to the end of our celebration.
“Victor-Jésus María, you bettah bring your black ass over here and get in this picture!” I bet you can’t guess who said that?
“Victor-Jésus María. Did you hear me?”
I’ve got to put my camera on autoset. Liliane has her mind made up.
“That’s absolutely right, cariño. There’s no room for voyeurism here. Wow. Victor, do you know you are dancin’ there right next to Machito. And La Virgen de Caridad is romping with Sierra. Walter Rodney is sharing a rum punch with Granville and Sawyer. Oh Lord, Augusta Savage is offering Roxie a canapé. Aw. We’d love to take some more photos for you, but we’ve gotta be in this dance. With all our friends, our ghosts, and the gods we love.
“But, querido, I promise to paint it for you…. Okay?”
By Ntozake Shange
Theater
for colored girls who have considered suicide/when
the rainbow is enuf
Three Pieces
Spell #7
A Photograph: Lovers in Motion
Boogie Woogie Landscapes
Poetry
nappy edges
A Daughter’s Geography
Ridin’ the Moon in Texas
The Love Space Demands
Fiction
Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo
Betsey Brown
Acknowledgments
The thanks and credit I must give to the incredibly mindful and emphatic people who assisted, encouraged, endured, and provoked me during the writing of Liliane is almost overwhelming. First, I want to thank Frank Stewart and Halima Taha as well as Irma and Miguel Algarin for providing hearth and home while I was on the road and inspiration when I was in New York. Then, too, Adal Maldonado, Mickey Davidson, Rasul Siddiq, Billy “Spaceman” Patterson, Jr., Jean-Paul Bourrelly, Candace Hill-Montgomery, and Gary Moore for repeated intense excursions into the worlds of these characters on stage, in rehearsal, or in the studio. The studied remarks of art historians Leslie King-Hammonds and Kathleen Coleman were of great significance to me. Finally, for rhythm and blues musicology, many thanks to Robert LaPierre and Donald Vereen.