The Fan-Shaped Destiny of William Seabrook (57 page)

86
. Worthington, Marjorie,
Scarlet Josephine,
NY: Alfred Knopf, 1933. An alternate realities tale, in its own fashion.

87
.
The New York Times,
20 Sep. 1935. Included in the story on Seabrook’s marriage to Marjorie Worthington, is a mention that Lyman “… had married the former Mrs. Seabrook ‘six or eight months ago,’ but declined to give the date or place.” Also see Worthington, Marjorie,
Strange World,
p. 202, in a 24 Feb. 1939 quotation from her journal: “News of Lyman and Katie. They have bought a remodeled farmhouse in Bucks County and seem to be happy.”

88
. Lyman Worthington’s date of death is confirmed as 20 Dec. 1966—from obituaries in
The New York Times
22 Dec. 1966, Trenton Times 21 Dec. 1966, and
Hightstown Herald.
He was found dead in his Hightstown apartment of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. He had been reported despondent over the death of his wife about eight months prior. Our appreciation to Rebecca, of the Hightstown Public Library, and Lynn, of the Trenton Public Library.

89
. Justine’s direct reference is to
Strange World,
pp. 216–18, including its quotation from
Magic Island.
However, Seabrook’s respect for Voudon may only be appreciated by reading
Magic Island
in toto. See Seabrook, William,
The Magic Island,
NY: Harcourt Brace, 1929; also Wirkus, Faustin and Taney Dudley,
The White King of La Gonave,
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, and Company, 1931, introduction by Wm. Seabrook. Haiti and La Gonave were not the full extent of Seabrook’s brushes with Voudon. Worthington,
Strange World,
pp. 216–18, describes his fearful reaction, in early 1940, to a present of a Haitian “ouanga” bag from Harrison (Hal) Smith. It appears that his alienation from Smith and his partner Jonathan Cape had wilder dimensions than a mere dispute over contracts. See
No Hiding Place,
p. 281. Also
The New York Times Review of Books,
6 Jan. 1929. Oddly coincidental,
The Magic Island
was being reissued in Paris (also D’ailleurs, Phébus) in 1997. Even as the events of this narration unfolded, Seabrook was being rediscovered by his beloved France.
Of course, perspective is relative. See Davis, Wade,
Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie,
University of North Carolina Press, 1988, pp. 71–72. “The most notorious of these publications was a book,
The Magic Island
… (Seabrook) presents as fact the reputed use of nine zombies in the fields of the Haitian-American Sugar Company . . in many ways the author was remarkably sympathetic to the peasants and the Voudon religion. This sympathy, of course, only made it that much worse …” We may only speculate why, sixty years later, the exploiters of the Haitian Occupation would be actively defended against such an ostensibly ludicrous charge.

90
. Seabrook, Katherine (Edmondson,)
Gao of the Ivory Coast
NY: Coward-McCann, 1931. Reissued by Negro Universities Press, Westport, Connecticut, 1970.

91
. Deutsch, op. cit., p. 190.

92
. Deutsch, ibid., p. 192.