Book Review: Dark Reflections

Samuel R. Delany's Dark Reflections is a slow paced narrative about an aging black gay poet. I liken the experience of reading it to unwrapping a present you weren't expecting. It is one of the most beautiful, painfully honest novels I've ever read. The pain does not lie within the action of the novel such as in Sapphire's Push, but within the inaction of the protagonist.

Arnold Hawley is a man who is perpetually dissatisfied with life but looks for gratification through the praise of his poetry. Sadly, as he says in his own words, the sort of praise he wants "doesn't exist" but it doesn't stop him "from wanting it, though - wanting it so much!" Ironically enough, when he is given praise he often rejects it, and even feels insulted by it. Even when the deepest desires of his heart come close to being met, he finds some way to sabotage it through his own inhibitions and neurosis. Arnold is a character who is imprisoned by his own inability to accept his self.

The root of Arnold's neurosis is slowly unraveled by the novel's three sections which takes the reader farther into the protagonist's past. We meet Arnold at age 68, then again at 36 and finally as a 22 year old college student. Each section reveals traumatic experiences that lead Arnold to shut the world out. His sexuality is of most concern, since he often obsesses over it but feels no freedom to explore.

Dark Reflections shows us images of gay life in New York and Boston in the 1950's, 60's and 70's. The infamous Stonewall Inn is used as the setting where Arnold and his gay friends are free to be open and to be who they truly are. I was surprised to learn that Stonewall was a traditionally black and Latino bar. Another note of importance is that the gay men in this novel come in all different shapes, sizes and colors. Delany takes a cue from Walt Whitman when describing the masculine beauty of these characters.

Dark Reflections is a story about how quickly life flashes by and how much society has changed over the past 50 years. Dark Reflections is an ode to a time gone by that can only be observed with distance, regret, and unrequited longing.