In the Land of Mountains
Madison Smartt Bell Scales the Heights — and the Depths — of Haiti

If the U.S. hadn’t stretched its military to the breaking point in its effort to start and sustain World War III, we could staff a UN mission in Haiti.

By John Hood

Madison Smartt Bell is no ordinary scribbler. A Nashville son of Vanderbilt alum who’d been friends with Allen Tate and other Fugitive poets, he learned to read at 4 and write, for real, in high school, when he was sidelined by a collapsed lung. His early ’80s work — which includes the novels The Washington Square Ensemble and Waiting for the End of the World — unerred on the tough side of fanciful New York during a time when fancy seemed to be de rigueur. His characters, he says, “are the guys that would have been mugging McInerney’s characters as they stumbled out of the Odeon at three in the morning.”

In ’95 Bell returned to the scene of a certain previously explored spirituality and unleashed All Souls’ Rising, the first of what would become a revered Haitian trilogy. Both mad and maximalist, the book not only induced nightmares, but it too became a finalist for both the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner.

Now fully fluent in the patois of this hemisphere’s most mysterious island nation, Bell continues his Haitian chronicles with Toussaint Louverture (Pantheon, $27), the story of the country’s most storied character. We caught up with the rad cat on the eve of his East Coast onslaught and shot him a few questions — here’s how he answered:

 Why Toussaint Louverture?

Well, I think one can make an excellent case that he is the greatest African American of all time. Certainly the only such hero to overthrow slavery from within and lay the foundation of an independent black nation. And, his career has the pattern of classic tragedy, which is appealing to the storyteller. And, I believe his story can be very valuable to many more people than it has so far reached.

Why Haiti?

When I was researching my first novel in the early 1980s I read a handful of books about Haitian Vodou. Later on, it seemed to me that a Haiti based project would give me a good opportunity to spend time in the Caribbean and practice my French. Fifteen years later when I actually did start going there, I fell in love with place, as all foreigners who aren’t driven mad by it do (and some who are driven mad by it for that matter....).

Do you think Preval can stabilize the country?

He has a better chance than any other single individual. I admire him tremendously, and I think he is the best president that could possibly have been elected the last time out. Turning Haiti around is a taller order than it was 10 years ago ... much. I hope and pray Preval can do it. I do think he has the fortitude, the talent and the will.

Should America stay out?

Depends on what you mean by that. U.S. involvement in the last couple of decades has had a nasty double-edge to it — i.e., we keep exporting our own partisan strife to Haiti — e.g., with one hand we restore Aristide to his elected office while with the other we underwrite and organize his overthrow by the same far-right elements that ran the military dictatorship of the early ’90s ... this sort of thing is not very productive and it has made a lot of Haitians despise and mistrust the United States.

On the other hand, the intervention of 1990s did have a positive side. The troops on the ground, especially Special Forces groups, had a good relationship with Haitians around the country and they were actually prepared and motivated for a nation-building effort. If the U.S. hadn’t stretched its military to the breaking point in its effort to start and sustain World War III, we could staff a UN mission in Haiti with Haitian Americans who speak the language and understand the culture. That’s a very hopeful idea, though unlikely to happen under present conditions, and it would require a longer-term commitment than we were willing to make previously. Meanwhile I think there are certain advantages to having a UN mission staffed by Latin America and the Caribbean community instead of the US.

Did you read/dig Graham Greene’s The Comedians?

Oh yes. I read it in my teens, and again after my first trips to Haiti in the mid-’90s. It’s not his best book but interesting if you’ve been there — plus in Port-au-Prince I stay in the Hotel Oloffson, the model for Greene’s “Hotel Trianon.” But the situation in Haiti in the ’90s reminded me more of The Quiet American — a better Greene novel, and quite apropos....

Alejo Carpentier’s The Kingdom of This World?

Yes. I didn’t know that book existed when I started my trilogy on the Haitian Revolution and I waited to read it until I was done. It’s the opposite approach to mine — fantastic, brief, idiosyncratic in the sense of playing around with the facts. It’s curious that while he names the other big leaders of the Revolution, he doesn’t name Toussaint, although there is a character that resembles him in some ways.

Zora Neale Hurston’s Tell My Horse?

It’s an interesting book, full of impressionistic vigor (though her picture of Vodou is fragmentary).

The work of Hugh Cave?

I missed him. Had to Google to learn who he was ... looks interesting. I did read Francis Huxley’s book on Vodou [The Invisibles], which maybe comes about a decade later.

Wade Davis’ The Serpent and the Rainbow? The movie?

The two best books in English on Vodou are The S & R and Maya Deren’s Divine Horsemen. (Her book’s a little better but Davis’ is much easier to find.) Most writers on Vodou get distracted by external rituals and so on. Davis and Deren have an unusually firm grasp of the heart of the matter.

The Serpent and the Rainbow movie is a so-so horror flick (at best) which has practically nothing to do with the book. I don’t blame Davis for taking the money, but the association has cost him a lot of credibility (especially since he was enthusiastic about publicizing the movie, so I’ve been told).

Any Haitian or Haitian-centric writers/filmmakers you care to recommend?

Haiti has one Nobel-quality novelist I know of — Lyonel Trouillot. He’s a great master, but not much of the work is translated in English, and that not too well. See also: Yannick Lahens, Rodney Saint Éloi, Ephele Milce. Franketienne, for sure. I am a huge admirer of Edwidge Danticat, who has solved the language problem by writing directly in English.

I’m not an expert on Haitian film but [Port-au-Prince-born director] Raoul Peck is awfully good....

Off topic, your novel Straight Cut made a great pulp paperback, any plans for any more for Hard Case Crime?

Perfect, really. They are doing an anthology of original stories I mean to contribute to ... and there has been a little talk of putting a couple other of my quasi-thrillers on their list.

We can’t wait.

Madison Smartt Bell is scheduled to speak about his latest book on Wednesday, Jan. 24 at 6 p.m. at Books & Books, 265 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables. Admission is free. Call 305-442-4408.

Comments? E-mail letters@miamisunpost.com.  Hood is online at www.therealjohnhood.com.