The truth of Jones, as a person and as a writer, is this: She is a prolific writer whose work is grounded in Black American language and community, as well as a diligent study of the Americas.
In 1970, when Jones was an undergraduate at Connecticut College, her work was included in an anthology, "Soulscript," which was edited by the Black feminist writer June Jordan, one of William Meredith's friends. Hers is a tradition of Black women's storytelling, a word that Jones has described as more capacious than novel writing.
Though Jones was in community with other Black writers, she was recognized as extremely reserved. As Tarana Burke, the founder of #MeToo and author of the newly released memoir "UnBound," said, "Like Ntozake Shange and Maya Angelou, Gayl Jones makes you sit in the reality of sexual violence in the lives of Black women, not just the moment but the conflicting emotions, the guilt, the shame, and even the attachment survivors can feel to those who have harmed them." Rather than private exposure, Jones is a master of rendering how trauma resonates through time. Audre Lorde described "Eva's Man" as "An inhuman little book, however well written," and one of the authors of the now-iconic Black feminist Combahee River Collective Statement, Barbara Smith, asserted that Jones "Had not been associated with or seemingly influenced by the feminist movement." It may in fact have been Jones's commitment to sustaining a Black frame of reference that most made her vulnerable to such critiques. What remains is a tender, blues-soaked story of people seeking truth, love and freedom in the detritus of the West.
Over the course of my search for Jones, I spoke to a host of distinguished writers - Simone White, Crystal Wilkinson, Honoreé Jeffers, Sarah Broom, John Edgar Wideman - all of whom see themselves as indebted to Jones for guiding them through this detritus.
source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/17/magazine/gayl-jones-novel-palmares.html
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