However, he knew from a young age he was queer and said any homophobia he felt growing up was directly related to religion. Raised Nation of Islam on his mother’s side and Southern Baptist on his father’s, Jones said he gravitated toward Christianity as a child because he loved the music. Jones used Biblical names and concepts throughout the story as a way to subvert and challenge the teachings of Christianity. The decision to shun Samuel and Isaiah quickly spreads through the community, jumping “from one face to the next, like lanterns being lit in quick succession.”Ĭhristianity, and the way it has both harmed Black Americans and been used as a tool of white supremacy, is a throughline of the novel.
That humanity does bring with it a betrayal, and it isn’t long until Amos, another enslaved man, begins to turn the others against Samuel and Isaiah, using his newfound enthusiasm for Christianity, as well as his own fears, to influence the others and chastise them for their acceptance of the two young men.
“I wanted to make sure that these characters were the character, and that I provided them with a whole, dimensional, full-bodied humanity.” “It was essential for me in writing this novel about such a brutal part of history that I infuse it with as much love and hope as I possibly could, because so many novels that deal with this period focus on slavery as the character,” Jones said. The others find that “simply bearing witness was a treasure,” even as they all endure together, living under the atrocities committed against them by the white family who enslaves them. Samuel and Isaiah love each other, and that love represents a beacon of hope to others enslaved on the sprawling Mississippi plantation, also known as Empty. They're here, and then we find the language to describe their experiences later on.” maybe we didn't have the language, but people don't appear because of the language. “How could it possibly be that Black queer people did not exist prior to the Harlem Renaissance?” he asked.
Jones, 50, speaking from his home in Brooklyn, New York, said his mission was to write a story with characters he’d never seen but knew existed.
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