Monique Roffey is an award-winning Trinidadian born British writer of essays, a memoir and seven novels most recently The Mermaid of Black Conch. Her novels have been shortlisted for the Costa, Encore and Orange Awards and Archipelago won the OCM BOCAS Award for Caribbean Literature.
Set in 1976 in St Constance, a tiny Caribbean village The Mermaid of Black Conch is the story of a fisherman who sings in his boat and attracts a sea-dweller he doesn’t expect: Aycayia, a young woman cursed by jealous wives to live as a mermaid, swimming in the Caribbean Sea for centuries. But her fascination with David’s song is her undoing, and she is caught by American tourists. It is a powerful magical realist story about a woman who has endured years of loneliness finally finding love. The Mermaid of Black Conch is out on April 2nd, 2020 and available from Peepal Tree Press. Last week, Monique kindly responded to my questions via email.
Molly Aitken The Mermaid of Black Conch is partly based on a folk legend. I’m curious, what was your journey to writing this novel? How did the idea come to you?
Monique Roffey I dreamt of her first, and then I was staying in northern Tobago back in 2013, during their annual fishing competition. I saw a large marlin strung up on the jetty and it just went from there. I found myself writing this story years later, in 2016. At first I wondered if I could write the whole book from the POV of a mermaid…but a close friend persuaded me not to and that was a wise decision. The mermaid’s voice does survive in the book, in a kind of free verse….but in the end I decided I wanted the story told via various point of views: a kind of matriarch’s all knowing Caribbean female voice, journal entries, in hindsight, of the fisherman and lover David and of course Aycayia herself. It’s really a love story, or two love stories. I loved writing this book. It all came together quite easily, a kind of perfect storm. Excuse the pun. The book ends with a hurricane!
MA Dreams have a magical quality in the novel, acting at times almost like portents for the characters. You also dreamt about your mermaid before you began writing. Do stories often present themselves to you in dreams or is this one unique?
MR Yes, many or most of my creative projects start with dreams. They are very important to me; it’s the unconscious trying to reach me and say something. I trust my dreams implicitly. My dreams are saying “look at me”, “follow me”.
MA That’s beautiful. Music is also a magical force in the story. David sings in his pirogue and instead of bringing the fish he attracts Aycayia. It is a form of communication and connection when language fails. Music also seems to usher in transformation, both physical and spiritual?
MR Music is numinous. Music connects us to the divine aspect of ourselves. Music brings goosebumps, an involuntary reaction to the divine. Humans have been drumming and making music since we lived in caves and were hunter gatherers living in small tribes. The mermaid and the fisherman connect in this way, of course they would, a preverbal, heart connection, a spiritual connection. Most mermaids are known for their ‘sweet voice’. Aycayia hasn’t heard music for millenia, and she is irresistibly drawn to it.
MA Aycayia is a woman from another time, she comes from an indigenous community long wiped out by white settlers. What research were you able to do about this community, their beliefs and stories?
MR Oh, lots of reading went into this. But the most important book I found was A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, by a priest called Bartolome De Las Casas, who left behind a journal and an eyewitness account of the atrocities of the Spanish when they arrived in the Greater Antilles. They more or less wiped out six million indigenous peaceful and civilised people in fifty years. It’s a very sobering account, an important record. He was horrified at the crimes perpetrated by his own people. This book gave me everything I needed.
MA In The Mermaid of Black Conch you employ magical realism and contrast it with the realities of the modern setting. In many ways the arrival of Aycayia seems like a return to a simpler time when people were more in tune with nature. There were the birds and the plants, the trees all around, the warm earth; all of it flooded back, her world of living gods. When David, ‘a modern man’ and the mermaid fall in love, it feels like a hopeful wish for rekindling humanities reconnection to nature. Could you speak to this?
MR Yes, that was a central question and concern for the narrative, and I’m afraid the answer is negative. Aycaya has a small band of friends and supporters, but it isn’t enough and the curse proves eternal. Sorry, this book is a tragedy in some ways. However, in her brief time in St Constance, Aycayia also gets to beat the curse too, in that she finds love and makes the rite of passage from girl to woman. She surrenders to erotic love and in this she gains the secrets of loving, kindness and compromise like in the Cupid and Psyche myth. She changes David for sure and shows him how life was, when we were shamanic creatures, very in tune with nature. I believe we still have a shamanism in our DNA. Everyone can still sense the coming of rain. We don’t need to listen to a weather report. We just know. We all love trees. It’s all still there, this ancient love and affinity for nature. Nature is a cure all.
MA There is an incredible magical power given to the female characters throughout the book. One way this feminine strength is illustrated is through curses. Aycayia is also a woman who has shamanic instincts. What does female power mean to you in this story?
MR Oh, well, The Feminine is very much forward and centre in the book. Yes, women utter curses, then and now, and guess what, they work. Be careful of what you say. Miss Rain, the woman who teaches the mermaid to speak, and Ayciayia herself are both complex and mysterious. They are both very self contained, too. Priscilla, a local woman who becomes suspicious of Aycayia, is an archetype of a bad witch. Her malevolent energy and intent is as strong as any good witch’s. Her intentions backfire, thankfully, because she asks a rather incompetant man for help, Porthos John. But, left to her own devices, Priscilla is dangerous and Miss Rain knows this. As a woman, I feel a moral duty to give my female characters agency and more, magic and wisdom and power. It’s kind of top of my list of things to do as a writer.
MA Historically, and today, we have hyper-sexualised the image of the mermaid. However, you turn this on its head with your portrayal of Aycayia. She is a sexual being but her sexuality comes from herself, in her own way rather than the abusive gaze of the American tourists. It feels like this was really consciously portrayed throughout the novel.
MR Yes, Aycayia embodies the archetype of Virgin. She isn't a Whore (though there’s nothing wrong with whores in my books). She is an Innocent and she is also a freak and a beauty; she is herself. Long dreads and covered in tattoos. I wrote rather long sex scenes that earned their place in the story as they are scenes of a rite of passge. She was cursed to stay a virgin and in those scenes she finds her way into the secrets of erotic love. She is sensual and yet I didn’t want her to be an object of lust. Again, this is her story and she owns it. David is given a chance to step up and into his manhood too.
MA Where can we read more/learn more about Caribbean folklore?
MR The Caribbean is a polyglot society but, overall, its folklore is mostly of African descent. I would send readers to look into Orisha (for Gods and Goddesses and spiritual deities) and of course with regards to cultural storytelling, the Trickster Anansi is an eponymous folkloric character. We have our own equivalents of vampires and strange magical folk devils. Look up Le Diabless and soucouyants, Duennnes and Papa Bois and Mama D’lo. The Caribbean is rich in lore and we see a lot of this made manifest during carnival too. In Trinidad and Guyana, there are Indian influences too. Each island is its own place. The European influences are also in the mix.