What do you think of the Chester Himes novels starring detectives Coffin’ Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones?
I love them but this is just one of the other influences in the book. Maybe it would be 15 of the 20 reference numbers I use. But Himes was a black writer who wrote about criminals in Harlem in the ’50s and ’60s, so it was bound to come to mind. I was mostly inspired by movies. Kubrick’s perfect heist, Jean Pierre Melville’s crime films, 70s American thrillers like Dog Afternoon… As for the literary references, Richard Stark [uno de los seudónimos de Donald E. Westlake] Specifically, her novels with Parker as the protagonist became a great model for creating the sociopathic criminal Pepper.
Was your intention to promote genre literature, let’s say serious literature?
No. I do not distinguish between high, medium or low literature. Literature works or it doesn’t, that’s all. It doesn’t seem to me like crime fiction needs us to elevate it to any level.
How does racism work among African Americans?
As among whites. In a few European countries, very blond hair and very fair skin are considered ideal for beauty, and you’ll go down in the category as the hair and skin get darker. This discrimination in white culture is reproduced in black culture.
Did the Dumas Club exist in Harlem?
No, but I’m similarly elitist. When you reach a certain position in life, you tend to join a club to exclude others. There are associations of black businessmen, bankers and lawyers similar to the Dumas Club.
The main character, Ray Carner, is more interested in developing economically without excluding the criminal path than in the civil rights of blacks. Is it customary in ’60s Harlem?
There are people with and without political affiliation. I don’t know why it should be different among blacks than whites. If you’re a criminal, you have a bank robbery planned, and the boss says, “We’ll do it on Tuesday,” nobody in the room will say, “No, I can’t do it on Tuesday, it’s show day.” There are people who work 14 hours a day and don’t have time to devote to that political dimension. And in 1964, in Harlem, there were certain people who had suffered brutal discrimination throughout their lives and had no reason to believe that Malcolm X or Martin Luther King would change anything. I believe reflecting that is painting a realistic portrait of Harlem’s diversity.
Aren’t you being a little sarcastic?
Harlem Rhythm is a book about criminals and its theme is the criminal mentality. It would be absurd to attribute major social commitments to characters. On the other hand: It’s okay to be sarcastic sometimes.
If there is one thing that has not changed in the United States, it is police violence against blacks. Because?
Changing it means changing how we relate to each other, how we treat each other, and many people don’t want to do that. The United States was built on the genocide of indigenous peoples and the enslavement of Africans. This is so and should be accepted. What is even harder to accept already is that we are now electing presidents who advocate white supremacy. [en referencia a Donald Trump]. This tells us, unfortunately, that racial violence in the United States is not just about the police, it has its representatives in every sphere of society.
It presents not just Harlem but New York as a cog driven by systemic corruption.
And I guess I’m not exaggerating a bit. It seems to me that New York is big and diverse enough to contain all sorts of stories, from those who laud it as a destination for immigrants desiring the dream of the middle class, to those who accept its utter corruption.
Let’s say your ideal night in Harlem in 1962 would be like?
I come mostly from downtown Manhattan, where I could see Bob Dylan in 1962 and The Velvet Underground and Jimi Hendrix a few years later. But a Harlem jazz club with John Coltrane or Miles Davis performing at two in the morning wouldn’t be a bad place.
Would Cafe Wha throw him more? Come on, in Greenwich Village rather than the Apollo Theater in Harlem.
For my musical taste, yes. Harlem Rhythm is the first book in a trilogy. The latter enters the 1970s, and Pepper’s character is in Cafe Wha?
Have you watched the documentary Summer of Soul about the 1969 Harlem cultural festival?
No, although I have read that it is very good. The park where Ray Carner buried Miami Joe’s body because it served as an illegal burial ground for murdered gangsters is where that festival was held. It was later called Mount Morris Park and now Marcus Garvey Park.
There seem to be quite a few of you in your fascination with the furniture that Ray Carner was selling at the time.
More than furniture, they are symbols of social progress. Furniture was very important back then. I prefer the 70’s to the 60’s but yes, I love that furniture. I watched them as a kid in sitcoms like The Brady Bunch.