DIS//INTEGRATION

A posthumously published work by a major (if unsung) Black novelist reminds readers of his imaginative brio, verbal ingenuity, and abrasive wit.

In a present day when innovative fiction by African American writers is finding greater acclaim, it’s appropriate that Kelley, who died in 2017 at age 79, should emerge from the relative shadows of cult heroism with this previously unpublished novel. The self-described “2 Novelas & 3 Stories & a Little Play” constituting Dis//Integration make up a shapeshifting biography of Charles “Chig” Dunford, a quasi-autobiographical character who previously appeared in Kelley’s short story collection Dancers on the Shore (1964) and in his novel Dunfords Travels Everywheres (1970). Chig, a highly educated writer and academic, seems to live his life in dreamlike phases, beginning in 1952 when, at 17, he travels south to meet his grandmother Nanny Eva, who enlightens him about the fate of women in the world. Twelve years later, Chig’s in Reupeo (an anagram of Europe), where he becomes protégé to a Hemingway-esque American expatriate writer named John Hoenir, who offers counsel on writing, living, and even sparring. (“You can only go to Heaven if you die fighting. An ambush don’t count.”) The narrative shifts to the “little play” form but not without a short introduction, described as a “dream” and written in a kind of Joycean patois Kelley has deployed in earlier novels. The dramatic narrative that follows seems surreal, too; it takes place in 1965 on a passenger ship where Chig meets and falls in love with Wendy, an enigmatic Black actress passing for white, who breaks his heart, but not before telling him about a hundred Africans chained together in the ship’s lower hold. Mutineers or…slaves? Nobody seems to know. Eventually both the narrative and Chig settle in Vermont, where he teaches English at a small college; looks after Merry, his teenage niece; meets Renka Bravo, a captivating, raven-haired dancer whose cosmopolitan smarts seem to be luring him from lifelong bachelorhood; and engages in some genteel but barbed sparring with Raymond Winograd, his department chair. There’s no use in trying to fashion any kind of logical narrative from these interludes. All you can do is marvel at Kelley’s arresting collagelike portrait of the artist as an intellectual nomad, clinging to the core of what makes him human—and humane.

There’s cleverness and craft in abundance here. Also, wisdom and even warmth.