The Freedom Race, Lucinda Roy’s explosive first foray into speculative fiction, is a poignant blend of subjugation, resistance, and hope.
We had the pleasure of speaking with author Lucinda Roy about her new release, along with writing, book recommendations, and more!
Hi, Lucinda! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
If you met me, I would be laughing a lot because otherwise the world’s injustices would drive me nuts. I grew up poor in terms of material wealth but rich in terms of heritage. My Black Jamaican father was an artist, novelist, and factory worker, and my White English mother was a repertory actor when she was young, which may explain why I’m capable of being laid back and earnest at the same time. I was raised in London, and I’ve lived for many years in the American South where THE FREEDOM RACE is set. I spent a couple of years teaching in Africa too. I’ve written mainstream literary novels, collections of poems, and a memoir-critique about what we can learn from the mass shooting at Virginia Tech, where I teach creative writing. I paint when I have the time, which isn’t often. I can sing like Mary Poppins and Snow White. (This is true and a little worrying.) Years ago, I was a member of a reggae band that achieved success after I left. I put this down to coincidence.
How has the first half of 2021 been for you?
Inspiring and infuriating. I’ve swung between optimism and pessimism. Optimism because of the vaccines and therapeutics, pessimism because the dangerous rifts in societies across the globe—and especially here in the U.S.—seem to be deepening. But I am lucky to work with inspiring graduate and undergraduate students and dedicated faculty, and I get to live inside worlds I create without being considered insane or delusional, for the most part.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
The first book I remember reading was a book of verse for children. The cadences and rhythms captivated me.
Apart from my father’s novels set in Jamaica, Things Falls Apart by African novelist Chinua Achebe and Macbeth by Shakespeare made me want to write. I taught both texts simultaneously at a secondary school in West Africa, and the parallels the students and I found between the two helped me understand the delight of connecting across cultures.
I often think about George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. I’m intrigued by the way he employs the third-person perspectives and relies on realism to deliver the fantastical.
When did you first discover your love for writing?
I discovered how much I loved writing when I wrote The Thrilling Adventures of Tommy Toothbrush. I was about eleven. It was my first (and only) novella, and I illustrated it myself with the kind of panache only a mother could call genius. Tommy the toothbrush had a series of misadventures, some of which were impressive given his physical limitations. (My brother still remembers the homemade book with fondness.) But it was the local library that kindled my love of books. Librarians are the High Priestesses of the Imagination. They could grant whatever wish I had. It seemed miraculous that I, a little “coloured girl” at the time, could have access to all those stories, and that no one could take them away from me. My young, widowed mother may not always have had money to keep the electricity on at home, but we had stories. Writing was even better than reading. I could invent the worlds I wanted to live in and make as many new friends as my heart desired. My father died when I was five, but I could raise those I had lost and dance with them if I wanted.
Your debut fantasy novel, The Freedom Race, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
A girl dreams herself free. (Maybe.) (Note: The last word doesn’t count because it’s in parentheses.)
What can readers expect?
Set in the future, when the U.S.A. has fractured and become known as the Disunited States, THE FREEDOM RACE is the story of Muleseed Jellybean “Ji-ji” Lottermule and her friends, raised in captivity on a plantation-inspired planting, where the enslaved are legally defined not as humans but as botanicals or seeds. Ji-ji dreams of entering the Freedom Race not only to obtain her own freedom but also to win it for others. I wanted to explore how hope can be resurrected in a damaged world. For those of us who have experienced trauma, there is no easy path to serenity, no magic wand to right the violations that accompany slavery, violence, and abuse. But the dreams of a Tribal wizard from the Cradle sow the seeds of hope in his community. In spite of a system designed to crush their spirits, three friends risk everything to help each other find freedom because they know a simple truth: caged birds don’t sing, they die.
What was the inspiration behind The Freedom Race?
The immediate catalyst for THE FREEDOM RACE was a growing concern I had about the future. Many years ago, living as I do in a small college town in the rural American South, I began to worry that the U.S. would break apart unless we found a way to tackle profound differences in perspectives, as well as chronic issues like climate change and inequity. I have written about historical slavery in my poetry, and I’ve been working on a series of oil paintings about the Middle Passage and the spirit of survival that sustained our ancestors. What sustains all of us of every race and ethnicity during times of crisis are stories—survival narratives, tales of wonder and mystery, myths that transport us from where we are to where we hope or dread we’ll be. The future of the Disunited States I envision in the book is more disconcertingly plausible than I’d hoped it would be when I began this journey.
Can you tell us about any challenges you faced while writing and how you were able to overcome them?
A big part of me loves writing, but a small part of me hates it. I’m an impatient person, and if you believe in your characters, you have to trust them enough to let them tell you where to go. Writers need to evaluate their work objectively and push their egos and insecurities aside. Novelists conduct an orchestra of character-musicians, some of whom are not keen on playing together. If you’re as lucky as I am, you have a wise editor and a fearless agent, both of whom you trust, and a spouse who is willing to read every draft of every chapter you’ve written. A spouse with the guts to tell you what’s not working, and who takes his repeated firings in stride.
Were there any favourite moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I loved writing inside the character of Afarra in THE FREEDOM RACE. An outcast, Afarra isn’t even permitted to have a name. Her planting designation is Cloth-33h/437, numbers that refer to her skin tone on the official Color Wheel, and her home planting, the 437th. (Girlcloths and boycloths are colloquial terms for underwear in the secessionist Territories.) Her friend Ji-ji names her Afarra because she came from afar, but she can never be called by this Name-Proper in public. Routinely abused, she is supposed to be absolutely nothing. She is forced to invent her own way of speaking. As a consequence, Afarra doesn’t think like anyone else. She is a secret unto herself, and there is a strength that comes from that. She loves fiercely, and the world she constructs from the shards of trauma has its own unique beauty. Her journey through the series is proving to be far more significant than I imagined when she made an appearance in an opening scene in the book. A few people are blessed with the capacity to manufacture their own joy—a rebellious, impossible joy that defies circumstance. There is no greater gift than this. Afarra possesses this rare ability.
What made you want to step into the fantasy genre?
I chose this genre because it’s inherently inclusive, capable of merging realism with the fantastical, and satire with myth. Also, many readers of sci-fi and fantasy dare to embrace the unfamiliar and the different; they don’t necessarily expect narratives to play by the rules.
What’s the best and the worst writing advice you have received?
Some of the best advice I received is that writing novels requires perseverance, a polite way of saying that novelists often have to work their butts off. The worst advice I got was to avoid sentiment or emotion. There is a fear among some writers that portraying profound sentiment leads to sentimentality. That’s a load of codswallop, and it can result in stultifying fiction.
What’s next for you?
I’m finishing up revisions to the second book in the series. Then it’s on to the third. I’m also working on another poetry collection. With the conclusion, hopefully, of this pandemic hiatus, I look forward to seeing people face to face again in classrooms, and at conferences, symposia, and readings.
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
I’ve just started An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon. I was on a panel with them recently, and I was struck by the directness and authenticity of their voice, and the ways in which they approach the rich complexity of the African Diasporic experience. Then I’ll move onto their new book Sorrowland published recently.
I’m also trying to find time to read The Expanse. Having watched the TV series and been delighted by its international, multiracial cast, I’m curious to see how it was adapted for the screen. I like to move from screen to novel rather than the other way around to avoid going into mourning over the parts they cut out. The series is one of the most plausible-yet-imaginative scifi dramas I’ve seen—full of psychological realism, multifaceted character portrayals, and riveting metaphysical mysteries.
