Bertrand Bickersteth

Canisia Lubrin, Code Noir.

TORONTO: Alfred A. KNopf Canada, 2024. $34.95.

John Coltrane’s album Impressions begins with drummer Elvin Jones laying down a shimmering rhythm, dominated by cymbals. There is some light plucking on the double-bass by Reggie Workman, but Coltrane’s sudden, soaring soprano sax draws the very different sounds of drums and sax into instant and solipsistic relief. For the next few moments, Jones and Coltrane share the same airy space, but in different corners of the sky. The whole thing eventually simmers down to a lush landing as, one by one, the rest of the band joins in. But that beginning, in which Coltrane and Jones wrestle with each other, is pained magic.

In Code Noir, Canisia Lubrin’s debut collection of short stories, there is an echo of this dynamic: the collection contains several references to Coltrane’s song “Venus,” which also happens to feature saxophone and drums in a cagily inventive duet. Something of this intentional contrast marks Lubrin’s stories as well. Code Noir is a curious achievement for its conceptual originality, occasionally delivered in a kind of prosaic tone somewhere between journalistic detachment and general fatigue with the world. I say “curious” because this is not what one might expect from a writer whose poetic works brim with imagistic ingenuity and breathlessly intricate rhetorical figures. What both Lubrin’s poetry and prose share, though, is a keen awareness of the impact of history on the common lives of those of us who live within the Black diaspora.

To be clear, it is unfair of me to suggest that the language of these stories lacks poetic impact—that would be misleading. Lubrin is clearly a poet throughout this collection of short fiction. I simply want to point out that if you are looking for the same poet who wrote Voodoo Hypothesis and The Dyzgraphxst, you will find a muted version in this text. Yet, she remains an original and inspiring writer in this form, and some themes from her poetry do translate well, such as the splitting of the subject self (the narrator of “Gardens in the Minibus” refers to himself as Blazes and I) and the pop culture references (Elton John, Whitney Houston, and Lucky Dube feature). Perhaps the most original aspect of the work, though, is a formal element: each story is inspired by one of the fifty-nine codes in the infamous code noir from which this collection takes its name, a series of legal articles France first enacted in 1685 that enabled slavery and provided the framework for regulating slaves within Nouvelle France (including parts of present-day Canada).

The extent to which the code noir was invoked in Canada is arguable; what is not arguable is the extent to which it was applied in the Caribbean. Accordingly, there is a strong Caribbean sensibility to these stories; Haiti, Martinique and especially St. Lucia feature. But while there is an undoubted historic sensibility at play, Lubrin regularly draws connections to contemporary times and situations. In this way, the codes are apt launching-off points for explorations of today’s anti-Black police violence, transnational migration, and the ins and outs of relationship-building in a Black world.

With fifty-nine stories to comment on, it will be difficult for me to convey the totality of this work beyond generalities. One element I will focus on is the deft engagement with Black music and Black arts. There is a temptation to liken these stories to the terse, and tense, vignettes in Joyce’s Dubliners. But, while I admire those stories, as a reader I always feel like a spectator in someone else’s world. Lubrin’s text is more aligned with Jean Toomer than Joyce, and her particular engagement with Black arts and Black history thoroughly distinguishes her work. If you are familiar with 21 Black Futures, the collaboration between Obsidian Theatre and CBC Arts, you will have a partial sense of the universe Lubrin has created. Her stories drop references to or directly engage jazz innovators (John Coltrane, Billie Holiday), authors (Naipaul, Césaire, Walcott, Brand) and artists (Torkwase Dyson) of the Black Diaspora. They engage with Caribbean cultural and imaginative expressions like calypso and carnival as well. One story, “A Calypsonian Sings of Seven Decades,” evocatively connects call-and-response to a ceremony memorializing a woman’s life across 70 years (ultimately inviting the reader to join in). Even when stories are set in North America, they are continually courting a “creolizing” effect: characters and narrators alike slip in and out of dialect; there is a prevalence of “b.k.a.” names; and smatterings of cheupses are encountered.

Another innovative element to these stories is their temporal range: some are contemporary, some are historical, and some are speculative. But beware: there is no neat progression here, and one never knows when the next story will be set. In this collection, we are in the realm of Edouard Glissant’s historical sensibilities, perfectly summed in the title of one of his essays, “Tracks Left Yesterday and Today, Mixed Together.” For Lubrin, I think, the point is that this is not an easy or straightforward thread to untangle. Its historical trajectory unmoored, as it is in this collection, Lubrin’s world is one in which we are continually rethinking our past, questioning our present, and inventing the future.

When Lubrin elevates her language to the level of her poetry (particularly in those stories where history feels unmoored), the result is a ritualistic, mythological effect. At times, I must confess, I felt unmoored, in need of a fixed location, a consistent dramatic focus. But at other times I reveled in her ability to use this technique to render the everydayness of characters artistic, beautiful, even in the face of tragedy. For example, in “How the River Swells,” a character’s confrontation with death produces “a wail as guttural as it is operatic.” These moments of poetry are everywhere throughout the collection, and provide dramatic focus in those places where ritual and myth unsettle.

Perhaps this is to be expected in a work of such ambitious scope as Code Noir. Its impact is felt in moments of poetry that don’t necessarily resolve but rather resonate across stories. In this sense, Code Noir works like music, and most like jazz, with the frenetic, angular stabs of Coltrane acting as a backdrop to the serene self-control of the narration throughout. Therein lies this book’s power: structured, but with an improvised feel, Code Noir is a cooperative contradiction of time and space, of melody and rhythm, of Black lives and Black matters.