NOTHING BUT A NEGRO

INTRODUCTION

The Boy With the Red Hair was the original novella that inspired DANNY. It, in turn, was inspired by a short story called Nothing But A Negro, which was written in the 80's and which was considered too politically incorrect for magazines of the time to touch.

Nothing But A Negro ostensibly told the true story of Robinson Crusoe, which was its original title, and which it should probably have kept since I wouldn't have had to explain its origins every time I sent it out (you can never beat "The bleedin' obvious" for editors).

I was a big fan of the (French) version of Robinson Crusoe which was on TV when I was a child - one of the earliest memories I have of the sub-rosa homosexual element of all-male adventures.

Years later I began to wonder about the potential for sexual power politics in a master/servant, black/white scenario, such as Robinson Crusoe - ideas which ultimately became Nothing But A Negro. This in turn was explored further in The Boy With the Red Hair, where it became master/servant, brother/brother, which in turn was condensed to become the distilled theme of DANNY - brother battling brother for who plays master and who plays servant. But this time I wanted a more complex version, where it was never clear who was truly battling who, or why, for what.

In The Boy With the Red Hair John and Danny are John and Jack and they are twins. Broadly speaking the Rab/Ian roles are played by the aristocratic master (who shows touches of an early James Conley). He is both spiteful and jealous like Rab, and submissive and devoted like Ian. But, just as both those roles could be reversed and still describe Rab and Ian, there are also touches of John in the master.

The story is set in the eighteenth century so is written with a different set of semantics. I came out of a writing background of Magic Realism and tinges of it still show in The Boy With the Red Hair. But it was the first story where I told a more straightforward, simpler narrative with less obvious poetic imagery and mythic/supernatural elements.

Those of you who have read DANNY Volume 1 will have noticed that I haven't shaken off my love of myth and fairytale and that my early years of voracious reading (horror, long before it was fashionable or respected - is it respected?) are still visible, even in this ostensibly ordinary contemporary tale.

Nothing But A Negro, however, is still firmly rooted in the realms of an albeit bleak and linear poetry. It is provided here solely for the amusement of those among you who have a healthy curiosity about how the knock-on effect of creative inspiration works. I hope you enjoy it, for its own sake, and as a further window into the wonderful world that is DANNY.

Chancery Stone

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