Francis Spufford, Cahokia Jazz
As much as I enjoyed Francis Spufford's almost comically positively reviewed 2023 novel Cahokia Jazz, and as much as I worried about its intercultural credentials, this can be only a short post. This an ugly time in the semester, and I've been ill for days (not COVID, but one of the innumerable other respiratory things that can strike one down). Not too many readers stop by here these days, either, but since the original point was simply to keep track for myself of what I've been reading, that's not a reason for brevity, but brief is what I'll be anyway.
This is a world where, as Spufford explains in the closing Acknowledgments section, the smallpox that came to North America was the less virulent variola minor strain, which normally results in a death rate of around 1%, rather than 30%. In consequence, European explorers vagabonds and thieves arrived in a fully occupied continent, rather than one that had been radically reshaped by pandemic, enough that these men felt they could get away with calling it "empty." This leads to a different world, and at the heart of it is the city-state of Cahokia.
The bad news: it was published in 2023. This book which features an Indigenous main character (jazz pianist and detective Joe Barrow), which focuses on the multigenerational internal politics of an Indigenous community, and which takes place in what the author imagines as an alt-history manifestation of a real Indigenous history. There's nothing in the Acknowledgements section, and I can't find any hints online, that Francis Spufford took seriously what should be a transparent obligation to connect with the nations. He does credit a few expert readers, including a linguist expert in North American Indigenous languages, but there's nothing that looks like a sensitivity reading, and nothing that implies he consulted with Indigenous peoples collectively to avoid cultural appopriation. (Kit de Waal: "Don't dip your pen in someone else's blood.")
The one review that I've connected with the hardest was Abigail Nussbaum's at her blog Asking the Wrong Questions, which notices much the same potential for concern: "it's surprising that none of the major book reviews have been able to offer a Native American perspective on the novel in what has otherwise been rather comprehensive coverage." There's lots to learn online about Cahokia, including through lesson plans for teachers, but
Nussbaum also makes this fascinating assertion: "The central question of the novel might not be 'what if Native American sovereignty endured?' but 'what if Catholicism was a force for good?'" One of her worries, if I can extrapolate, is that this might be alt-history as fantasy aimed (consciously or un-) toward the remediation of Christian intentions toward the so-called New World. That's ... well, toxic isn't a kind word, but I'm comfortable with my sense that in general, and very often in particular, Christianity not only failed to respect the humanity of this continent's Indigenous peoples but often worked actively to eradicate it. Are there happier stories? Sure. Were there good people? Of course. Should the Euro-Christian trajectory in this continent be recast as a redemptive story? Abso-fucking-lutely not.
Anyway.
Cahokia Jazz was a really entertaining novel. There needed to be consultation with Indigenous communities, so if there was any, Spufford should've said so, but I don't think there was. That's incredibly unfortunate, because it's a missed opportunity that could've made this entertainment into a genuinely irreplaceable book.
And that's an alt-history I could've gotten behind.
(And yes, this IS a short post. You don't live in my head.)
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