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My
wife didn’t see the cover of my 2013 prose collection of erotica, Intimacy 101: Rooms & Suites, until
it was at the printer. There was, to my
mind, at least one good reason for that: the cover was a photo of her.
For
the first two of the three years I wrote The Onlooker for the Nation newspaper in Barbados, she read
every column before it went to my editor.
She was the only person to read the entire manuscript of my novel And Sometimes They Fly before I
submitted it to my publisher, DC Books. My
wife hasn’t read everything I’ve written before it’s released to (or unleashed
on) the world. Since we’ve been
together, she’s actually read a rather select percentage of my work. A manager by training, “not a writer or
anything like that,” she’d say, her artistic judgement is nonetheless very
reliable.
I’d
be a fool not to run the cover by her.
But I was unsure of her reaction.
My photo, her
image
The
cover is a photo I took of her at our front door, maybe circa 1998. It’s late morning, and we’d just gotten out
of bed. She’s still wearing the black
negligee I had bought her for a birthday or anniversary, and she’s tying up her
hair before going out to the laundry room to put in a load of clothes. There’s something about the light and her
posture that makes her limbs look longer than they actually are; she’s a neat
5’2”.
My
camera happened to be nearby, a Kodak 35mm with basic zoom. I took the shot, and, surprisingly, she
didn’t complain: about her hair or dress or being ambushed in this way.
We
were not long into our marriage then. Years
of comfort with your partner, however, can make a person unexpectedly
self-conscious. I thought my wife might veto
my choice of the old photo as cover art for Intimacy
101.
“You
didn’t ask me my permission,” she said, mock serious, when I finally showed her
the digital proofs of the cover.
“It’s
my photo,” I said.
“Eh-eh. But it’s my picture,” she said before
moving from the screen to clean the bathrooms.
Lucky man
When
Barbadian filmmaker Russell Watson visited our house two years ago in October, he
saw the photo. He was over to interview
me for a series of shorts on local writers he was producing for the National
Cultural Foundation’s 2012 National Independence Festival of Creative Arts
(NIFCA). The cover photo rests quietly
in the family room, in no fancy frame, on top one of my filing cabinets. He was looking for a good place to shoot and asked to see—marched, actually, right into—that room.
He
stopped when the photo caught his eye, held it up.
“The Mrs,” I explained. “I took
it. Many, many years ago.”
He
nodded. I realize now I don’t know what
caught his eye, the light, the woman, what she was wearing. But he said, “Lucky man,” and I nodded.
There’s
probably another reason I didn’t share with my wife my desire to use this photo
of her as the cover for Intimacy 101,
and this reason carried over even into my dealings with the book’s designer: as
sexual as we are, most folks aren’t so comfortable with overt references to the
erotic, much less to their own eroticism.
The nature of the thing
When
I met with my book designer, Carissa Lee of Cleeative Design, to discuss the
specs and content for the book, I told her, “There are certain stories, because
they’re dealing with relationships, that are more graphic than others. But you’re an adult. You’ll get over it.”
I
should mention Carissa is a former student of mine. I taught her Research Methods at Barbados
Community College in the Division of Fine Arts.
I oversaw the writing of her final-year illustrated research paper. A talented graphic designer, she clearly had a
natural understanding of book design.
She was my first choice for the job, if available.
All
this Carissa knew—not really the exact
nature of the thing, which I should have been more frank about. Nor did I know, despite her reserve, that she
was rather religious. When finished the
proofs, she wrote me in an email: “I do not feel comfortable with certain topics
including witchcraft and immoral sexual behaviour and working on jobs that
include this would go against what I believe as a Christian. I had failed to get sufficient info on Intimacy 101 before agreeing to do it
but I had already agreed and therefore kept my word.”
Right thought, right
action
The
time for reticence on my part was clearly over.
“I respect your position,” I wrote back.
“Mind you, you should probably know that I am also a Christian—baptized,
confirmed and married in the same little church in LaSalle, St Lawrence
Anglican, which I still attend when back home in Canada—and I have a different
view of what goes against the grain spiritually.
“Much—probably
almost all—of my own writing, be it fiction or non-fiction, has had to do with
family, relationships and notions of right thought and right action…issues
dealing very much with the morality of our lives from, I must say, a decidedly
Christian perspective.”
Carissa’s
reply was heartening. She’d not misread the spirit of my sentiments,
always a possibility when sex, religion, art, or politics is involved: “I
appreciate your comments and it is quite possible that with time and more
experience I may view it from a different perspective. At this point, however, I feel comfortable
with the decision I have made and I thank you for your understanding.”
After
that, we got on with it. Carissa proofread
copy as well as worked on the graphics, and insisted she personally deal with the
printer when readying the final proof for press “to ensure the job is done to
your satisfaction.” She was professional
from start to finish, not that I’d actually expected anything less from
her.
Despite
the ugliness in our world, there’s still plenty of room for Beauty and
Truth. I like to think both may be found
in the particular spaces I explore. As a
writer, as an artist myself, I don’t pass judgement on others, no matter how
uncompromising my critique of or curiosity about society. My vocation, as I’ve embraced it, is to tell
it like it is and like it ain’t. To
describe life as it is and life as it ought to be. From cover to cover, and with grateful creative assist, Intimacy 101 along with my other work attempts to do this.
RES
· Robert is the critically acclaimed author of
the NBM Amerotica titles Attractive
Forces, Stray Moonbeams and Great Moves. His other books include the novel And Sometimes They Fly; the story
collections The Tree of Youth and Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall; and the
memoir Sand for Snow: A
Caribbean-Canadian Chronicle.
Intimacy 101: Rooms & Suites is
available from the following bookstores: The Book Place (E: bookpl96@gmail.com); Days Books (daysbookstore.com); and UWI Bookshop (uwibookshop.com).
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