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March 3, 2022
David Wright Faladé's Playlist for His Novel "Black Cloud Rising"
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others.
David Wright Faladé's novel Black Cloud Rising is a captivating account of Black experience during the Civil War.
Publishers Weekly wrote of the book:
"The story of the African Brigade, a unit of Black freedmen who fought for the Union during the Civil War, gets its due in this superior adult debut from Faladé . . .[Richard] Etheridge is made a fascinating figure, well suited to serve as the focal point for Faladé’s exploration of the complexities of Etheridge and his comrades’s rapid shift from powerlessness to armed military duty. Engrossing and complex, this will have readers riveted."
In his own words, here is David Wright Faladé's Book Notes music playlist for his novel Black Cloud Rising:
I don’t listen to music regularly, or even often. But I get attached to certain songs, to certain singers. I associate them with certain moods.
I especially don’t listen to music when I’m writing, but the tone of certain songs often underscores what I’m feeling as I work on a given scene or passage or sentence. Sometimes, I find myself humming the tune or turning on the song later in the day without having realized that it had informed my writing.
These are the songs that I associate with Black Cloud Rising. In some instances, it is a certain song that evokes or recalls a particular character from the novel; in others, the song might bring to mind entire passages or themes.
The soundtrack to the 1980 film The Long Riders—the entire album but notably, the title song, by Ry Cooder
Summers growing up, my big sister Myriam and I would spend a month or so in Kansas City, visiting our father. He was a cabbie and drove nights, and regardless, he didn’t have the patience to entertain two teenagers. He’d drop us off at the mall and go home and sleep. We’d wonder around, but inevitably we’d find ourselves in line for a movie. Ones that we liked, we’d see again and again, sometimes several times in the same week.
We saw The Long Riders seven times during the summer of 1980.
To this day, Myriam still covers her eyes before violence erupts on screen. The Long Riders was a notably bloody movie for its day, yet she was entranced as I was.
I fell in love with the soundtrack. I had no particular attraction to blue grass or county music—and, as a black kid, to demonstrate interest was to invite public shaming by other black kids. But the period feel of Ry Cooder’s songs left a strong impression. (Myriam bought me the album for my birthday.)
The irony of the fact that the “heroes” of the movie are former Confederate guerrillas is not lost on me. Still, something about the confluence of so many things—the period Civil War feel, guerrilla-style fighting, a complex family story… Ry Cooder’s album was often in the back of my mind while working on Black Cloud Rising.
“The Whole World,” Outkast
For the character Richard Etheridge
Richard is the central character and the narrator of the novel, so I associate many, many songs with him and was listening to a range of things as I conceived and wrote him. But this one, in particular, expresses an aspect of Richard that is central to who he is. He feels like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders—from his responsibility to his family and his community to his duties to the men in his regiment.
Yet he is also tormented by his own difficult questions. For much of the time, he feels like his performing “Richard Etheridge”—or, in the instances when he is with his white family, performing “Dick Etheridge”—rather just being himself.
“Mississippi Goddamn,” Nina Simone
For the character Rachel Dough, Richard’s mother
I imagine Richard’s mother as small of stature but a huge presence. Nina Simone comes to mind. Unbowed. Unforgiving. She is defined by her outrage and also by her soaring rage. Her beauty manifests through this rage.
“Hey Mister,” Ray Charles
For the character Fields Midgett, Richard’s lifelong friend and a corporal in the regiment
Similar to Rachel Dough in import but different in approach, Fields serves as Richard’s conscious. He helps keep Richard grounded. As Richard says of him, “He was a friend true.”
“Tadow,” Masego and French Kiwi Juice
For the character Fanny Aydlett, Richard’s love interest
Fanny is so much more than just an object of desire. But, for Richard, she is absolutely this. I can imagine no song that better represents the thing felt by a man for the woman he desires than “Tadow.”
“My Father’s House,” Bruce Springsteen
For the character John B. Etheridge, Richard’s father and also his owner
A little on the nose, but this song evokes for me Richard’s conflicted relationship with his father,
“Adam Raised a Cain,” Bruce Springsteen
For the character Patrick Etheridge, Richard’s white, “near” brother
Again, a little on the nose, but Patrick and Richard’s conflicted relationship with each other, along with their rivalry for John B.’s approval, is echoed in the anger of this song.
“Time Is a Lion,” Joe Henry
For the character Sergeant Revere, Richard’s nemesis
Richard is drawn to Revere even as he mistrusts him. Revere speaks a truth that Richard doesn’t want to hear, and Revere insists that he hears it. A showdown is inevitable.
“Brother Man” The Brothers Johnson
For the character Alonzo Draper, Richard’s commanding officer
The evolution of Richard’s relationship with Draper, who is white—from mistrust and misunderstanding to profound respect—is quiet and evolves slowly over the course of the novel. Cool, funky “Brother Man” captures the feel of it for me.
The friendship between Richard and Allie comes to symbolize the possibility for racial reconciliation. This hope has to endure. We’re not there yet.
“Sinnerman,” Nina Simone
From chapter one: the arrest at Clapson’s farm
“Vengeance can be justice, well-earned and meted out fairly. And yet it be vengeance all the same.”
“Tennessee,” Arrested Development
From chapter six: the African Brigade’s emancipating of the slaves between the Great Dismal Swamp and Tar Corner
“A Great Jubilee Day!”
“A Change Is Gonna Come,” Sam Cooke
From chapter eight: the African Brigade’s arrival in Elizabeth City
To choose this song is cliché to the point of almost being trite. But has there been a better anthem for hopefulness?
“Heroes,” Peter Gabriel covering David Bowie
From chapter twenty: the battle at Indiantown
I’m thinking, specifically, of how Peter Berg uses this song at the end of his underrated, moving 2013 film, Lone Survivor—of the mood that is evoked. Tragic and sad; hurt and shaken, but undiminished.
“Rocket House,” Chris Whitley
From chapter twenty-three: the encounter at Pungo Point
The tone of the song captures the feeling of the strange but ultimately triumphant encounter—white Union soldier vs. black Union soldier—that occurs near the end of the novel.
David Wright Faladé is a professor of English at the University of Illinois and the Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fellow at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. He is the co-author of the young adult novel Away Running and author of the nonfiction book Fire on the Beach: Recovering the Lost Story of Richard Etheridge and the Pea Island Lifesavers, which was a New Yorker notable selection and a St. Louis-Dispatch Best Book of 2001. The recipient of the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Award, he has written for the New Yorker, the Village Voice, the Southern Review, Newsday, and more.
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