The Man Who Cried I Am (58 page)

We were, altogether, five writers during the period the Roths were there, including Hardie St. Martin, a Honduran-American poet, who also came through around that time. We rarely discussed our work when we gathered for drinks on someone's patio or living room; we tended to talk about home. And we rarely discussed what it was like living in a Fascist state, or, for that matter, our own country where racism continued to run rampant because, as noted earlier, a similar questionable political situation seemed to be developing (or continuing) at home. At no point that I can now recall was I a victim of racism in Spain. A subject of some curiosity? Yes, but never anything malicious.

Early in May 1966, we left Spain to live in Amsterdam, stopping along the way in Munich to visit nearby Dachau for the first time. (I would return years later to do research for
Clifford's Blues
, my novel about a black American musician interred in the camp. Seeing a photograph of some black inmates on that first visit was the impetus for the novel.) Our time in Amsterdam was pleasant and productive. I had a chance to reacquaint myself with the city, which is the setting for a great part of what would become
The Man Who Cried I Am
. Five months later, we drove to Paris, sold our Citroën, and after a brief stay, it was back to Le Havre and then home, sailing heavy seas much of the way. We reached the port of New York Thursday, October 13, 1966, exactly one year from the day we were supposed to have left it but couldn't because of my bleeding ulcer.
The Man
was all but finished.

It was published on October 20, 1967, was well-reviewed coast to coast, and a year later came out in the first of several paperback editions, with an inside cover quote from New York mayor John V. Lindsay, which the hardcover publishers were reluctant to use:

“If this book is to remain fiction, it must be read.”

Disastrous events had preceded and followed the publication of the novel: the killing of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, Malcolm X in 1965, and three months after the book came out, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., followed by Robert Kennedy's assassination a few months later. That may be why so many readers said they believed the King Alfred Plan was real. No doubt, in a skewed way, those murders gave great heft to the novel. It was not unusual for people to ask me just where I'd got such an idea and how come I was still alive (leaving me to jump when the phone rang at odd house or uneasy when I'd hear clicks on the phone). Some time after, in 1989, Kenneth O'Reilly's
Racial Matters: The FBI's Secret File on Black America, 1960–1972
, was published. That book, and several others, remains a sobering record of those fragile and dangerous times, when government was not (nor is it now) what most of us would wish or need it to be. Homeland security sounds too very much like Fatherland security—a development perhaps not even Max Reddick could have foreseen.

—J
OHN
A. W
ILLIAMS

About the Author

John A. Williams (1925–2015) was born near Jackson, Mississippi, and raised in Syracuse, New York. The author of more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction, including the groundbreaking and critically acclaimed novels
The Man Who Cried I Am
and
Captain Blackman
, he has been heralded by the critic James L. de Jongh as “arguably the finest Afro-American novelist of his generation.” A contributor to the
Chicago Defender
, the
New York Times
, and the
Los Angeles Times
, among many other publications, Williams edited the periodic anthology
Amistad
and served as the African correspondent for
Newsweek
and the European correspondent for
Ebony
and
Jet
. A longtime professor of English and journalism, Williams retired from Rutgers University as the Paul Robeson Distinguished Professor of English in 1994. His numerous honors include two American Book Awards, the Syracuse University Centennial Medal for Outstanding Achievement, and the National Institute of Arts and Letters Award.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1967 by John A. Williams

Afterword copyright 2004 by John A. Williams

Cover design by Andy Ross

ISBN: 978-1-5040-3355-8

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