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Look back in lust
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BY HAL BENNETT
BY DAVID ULIN hal bennett's "Lord of Dark Places" is a novel that fell through the cracks. Published in 1970, it's been out of print for 25 years, not so much forgotten as unknown from the very beginning. This is a crime, because "Lord of Dark Places" is a visceral portrayal of a marginal community -- a bitter, ironic, at times viciously funny account of the black experience in the years leading up to and including Vietnam. "Lord of Dark Places" tells the story of Joe Market, a black everyman whose adventures reflect the turmoil of his times. Opening in rural Virginia in 1951, the novel follows Joe to the Newark ghetto of Cousinsville, where he becomes the very model of a streetwise stud. Such a life, it seems, is Joe's destiny. As a boy, he was known as "The Naked Disciple," the star attraction of the religion his father, Titus, invented as a moneymaking scheme. In reality, Titus' church is a glorified bordello, with Joe expected to service the faithful -- both men and women -- if the price is right. The theology Titus preaches is not exclusively erotic: "When the Bible says black," he exclaims in one inspired moment, "I say white. When it says good, I say evil. When it says, Behold, Jehovah is a God of Light, I say, Behold, He is the Lord of Dark Places, for his children gnash their teeth and cry unto Him and are not heard." Throughout these pages, Joe seeks to come to terms with this dichotomy, that being black means being separate, forced to exist in a parallel world. Bennett plays with stereotypes, giving Joe the ability to smoke joint after joint and sleep with woman after woman, often in the space of a single day. There's more to the book, though, than broad satire, and "Lord of Dark Places" also evokes the way "America was two-timing them all." Joe forms an electric bond with Tony Brenzo, an Italian cop, and when their friendship explodes into violence, Bennett illustrates the difficulty of seeing beyond what Joe calls "the pretense of virtue," the way both blacks and whites feel they must face each other with lies. "The white man's hypocrisy makes him pretend not to hate," Joe argues. "On the other hand, a Negro pretends in order to keep from being destroyed." Still, Tony counters, "I believe in the virtue of pretense ... it's the only way we can ever arrive at the truth."
In the end, this truth is what motivates "Lord of Dark Places," which may be another reason for the book's prolonged absence from print. After all, what Bennett is seeking is a way to explicate every myth perpetrated about black men in America, and in so doing, destroy them all. It's a daunting task, messy and profound, and without doubt, it pushes the novel to extremes. But extremism in literature has its place, as "Lord of Dark Places" ably proves.
David L. Ulin is working on a book about Jack Kerouac. |
