Letters from Amherst. Samuel R. Delany

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      Acknowledgments / 173

       CORRESPONDENTS

      ROBERT S. BRAVARD

      was director of library services at the Stevenson Library at Lock Haven University, Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, and the coauthor with Michael W. Peplow of Samuel R. Delany, A Primary and Secondary Bibliography, 1962–1979 (G. K. Hall, 1980).

      KATHLEEN SPENCER

      is the author of a monograph, Charles Williams (Starmont, 1985), and was a professor of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

      ERIN MCGRAW

      is author of the short story collections Bodies at Sea (University of Illinois Press, 1989) and Lies of the Saints (Chronicle Books, 1996), and the novel The Baby Tree (Story Line Press, 2002). She taught English at DePauw University and Ohio State University.

       FOREWORD

       Nalo Hopkinson

      In 2014, the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award was presented to Samuel R. Delany. In science fiction and fantasy literary circles, this award confers recognition and respect to someone whose oeuvre is of significant merit. It may have been the first time in the award’s thirty-eight years of existence that it went to a writer of color; certainly it was the first time it was conferred upon a Black writer. Delany has written in numerous genres, but we in science fiction claim him and he claims us—certainly not a monogamous relationship, but a strong and loyal one—so I write about him from that perspective.

      I’ve been reading Samuel “Chip” Delany’s work since I was in my 20s, long before I came to know him personally. I began with his science fiction and fantasy, since that’s my preferred mode of fiction (and which, a decade or so later I would choose as the mode in which I primarily write. It was in Chip’s work that I encountered the concept that science fiction is not a genre with a single, fixed narrative, but a “metagenre.” It’s more a way of writing and reading; what I now call a “mode” of writing.).

      When I’d read all of Chip’s science fiction and fantasy I could get my hands on, I was still craving more of his words, so when I discovered his non-fiction, I moved on to that. His autobiographies Heavenly Breakfast and The Motion of Light in Water were a jaw-dropping revelation. They were evidence of a person living a life outside the mainstream, and not simply living it, but also finding friends, allies, lovers, love and support along the way. Those two books showed me that I too, a misfit Black girl, could dare to live.

      Those read, I moved on to Chip’s scholarly work. Not a familiar leap for me at all; at the time, more than thirty years ago, I read fiction almost exclusively.

      I didn’t know what to expect, had no idea what I’d let myself in for. Chip provided one of my first introductions to the scholarly practices of cultural theory and literary criticism. Many of the concepts were completely new to me. I barely grasped half of what I read. But the ideas, the lovely, shiny ideas and Chip’s plum-cake-rich writing style, luxuriating as it does in words, connections, detail, and precision, captured me in prisms, mirrors, lenses, and kept (keeps) me reading. Yes, it’s a mixed metaphor. It’s all right; you’ll survive.

      What’s more, for all Chip’s evident erudition when he’s writing this way, he can be playful about it. In this volume you’ll find a letter in which he talks about having just finished “a new Steiner essay.” He’s referring to his alternate ego, a woman scholar he’s invented and named Leslie K. Steiner. She writes criticism of Samuel R. Delany’s writing.

      The man deconstructs and critiques his own fiction, and does so unflinchingly. When I first discovered that, I was both awed and amused—still am.

      The first time I met Chip in person was quite a brief encounter. He was in my then home town of Toronto, Canada, being interviewed by Judy Merril. Judy is the person who introduced me to the practice of the informal writing workshop by encouraging me and a number of other would-be students of hers to form one. Chip talks about her in the first letter in this book. She was a writer, editor, and all-round inciter, a powerful and positive influence in science fiction and fantasy. I’m now friends and have occasional writing dates with Judy’s granddaughter, the talented Emily Pohl-Weary. It is thus that these connections extend through the generations.

      In any case, I attended the interview. Afterwards, Chip did a signing. I shyly handed him my copy of his novel Dhalgren. It was a library discard, already battered before it came into my hands. My own multiple readings of the book had rendered it threadbare as a well-loved teddy bear by the time I presented it to him. Its ears had been dogged and nibbled upon. There were old library stickers on it. There may even have been water damage to some of its pages. I apologized for the state of the book and for not having bought my own new copy of it (I did understand how royalties work, and I knew that artists need to get paid. But the book wasn’t in print at the time, and nevertheless, my book budget was quite limited.) I believe Chip generously replied that what was important was that I’d read it. I agree. Nowadays, it’s what I say to readers who apologize to me for having obtained my books through their local public libraries. Many years later, when I was first getting to know the person who would become my primary life partner, he talked about having had a very similar encounter with Chip. The fact that my swain was a fellow Black person who also knew and adored Delany’s writing was a huge checkmark in the “positive” column of my mental pros and cons list for pursuing the relationship. I suspect he felt the same way. (And now my mischievous brain is whispering, “Chip Delany as hanky code! Write that down!” So I am.)

      As I watched Chip interact with his readers at that signing, I realized—a bit to my surprise, I admit—that the way he deals with people in person is, well, personable. I guess I’d expected him to speak the way he writes; in long, complex, deeply erudite sentences. He doesn’t. He speaks plainly and respectfully, and accords worthiness to everyone at first blush. I would later learn that he doesn’t suffer fools, but his bluntest of ripostes are delivered as though to an equal.

      The same personableness is evident in the five letters which comprise this book. The strongest impression I came away with from reading it; Chip likes people. He cares deeply for his friends, lovers, family, students, and strangers. He loves watching his friends fall in love. He loves cooking for them. He loves talking with his daughter, and has done since she was a child. He has long conversations with strangers he meets on public transit. That’s a difficult thing for me to do.

      I very much enjoyed reading his stories about meeting and falling in love with his partner Dennis. I knew bits of them already, from having read the autobiographical comic he did with artist Mia Wolff, yet I was delighted to read some of the same words I’d read in the comic:

      And held each other.

      —for a couple of days.

      Yep, still gets me all verklempt. Chip and Dennis are from such very different walks of life. “Common wisdom” tells you that that kind of relationship can never work. Apparently, in this case, common wisdom has its head up its ass.

      The five chatty and compelling long letters were written during the years 1988 to 1991, to Robert Bravard, Kate Spencer and Erin McGraw. Chip talks frankly about life and teaching and falling in love, moments of sadness, moments of joy, world affairs; the kind of stuff you’d expect from letters. He also discusses opera, the theatre, and cuisine, reminding me what a Renaissance man he is. They all feature his delightful habit in his writing of folding into the narrative sensory specifics of his surroundings; the ambient temperature and sounds, someone making coffee, etc. The second strong impression I came away with—it’s one I’ve had before—is how generously Samuel R. Delany shares the realness of his life with his audience. It is a great gift to those of us who encounter him. When I was an emerging writer,