Novelist Gwendoline Fortune To Speak In Boone
Book Signing At Boone Unitarian Church Nov. 14

By Jeff Eason

Gwendoline Fortune started her first novel when she was a 15-year old college freshman. 40 years later she finally finished it.

Growing Up Nigger Rich is a novel that draws its inspiration from Fortune’s own experiences as an African-American woman growing up in the South during the Civil Rights Movement. The novel chronicles the life of Gayla Tyner, a college professor who returns to her South Carolina home after 30 years “up North.” While she comes to grips with what has changed and what has stayed the same in the South, she finds her personal life unraveling due to a philandering husband and a domineering, “old school” patriarchal father.

Fortune will read and answer questions from her book, Growing Up Nigger Rich, at the High Country Writers’ Meeting at the Watauga County Public Library in Boone on Thursday, November 14 from 10 a.m. to noon. She will also present a reading and sign copies of her novel on Thursday, November 14 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Boone United Unitarian Church. The High Country Writers’ meeting event is open to members of the group and their guests, and the event at the Unitarian Church is free and open to the public.

Fortune stirred up some controversy just by choosing a title for her first novel. The dreaded “N” word immediately provoked reactions from readers, bookstore owners and critics.

“When I completed the earliest draft of my novel, I called it Growing Up, Growing Out,” said Fortune. “My son said, ‘Mom, you need something that will grab attention. Why don’t you call it Growing Up Nigger Rich because that’s what you were?’ We decided that the title would get the attention of an agent or publisher, but that the title might later be changed by a publisher.”

After some internal debate, Fortune decided to go with the title her son suggested, mainly because the phrase is so central to her novel.

“I recall reading the word ‘nigger’ in Richard Wright’s work and other novels of my youth,” said Fortune. “I recall the times I was called, and heard others who were brown-skinned called, ‘nigger.’ I recall cohorts in the small city of Anderson, South Carolina who sneered, laughed, and said to me, ‘You think you’re something, ‘cause you’re nigger rich.

“Once said lightly, I have come to realize that the phrase, ‘nigger rich,’ is essential to the fictionalized account of the world-view I have always known. To reject the novel because of the title is to reject the creative process and person and to reject the humanity of numberless people of similar inheritance and sensibility again.”

Fortune recognizes that the word means different things in different contexts. Rather than trying to shock her readers, she uses the word in one of its particular contexts.

“My philosophical, scholarly and psychological reaction for anyone who would reject a four-word phrase because of one word, the third, is to ask them to consider the context, look at the cover, read randomly from the novel,” said Fortune. “Upon reflection, I question the inner fear that would deny and hide from a word, regardless of its negative pervasiveness in the culture. Fully aware of historical reality and the current, misguided political correctness, my social, scientific, historical, artistic, and personal assessment is that the title and the novel offer one of too few opportunities for readers to move beyond limitation, to explore reflexive responses, and to think.”

The Pelican Publishing Company released Growing Up Nigger Rich earlier this year and the critical response has been to lavish praise upon the well-thought out debut novel.

Southern writer Lee Smith called Growing Up Nigger Rich, “A well-written novel populated by a vibrant cast of characters. An important Southern story, seldom told—illuminating, memorable and necessary.”