A Mountain Obscuring Itself With Clouds

In search of a writer who disappeared.

Walking along the road near where I live in Shizuoka City, I noticed some clouds building up over Mount Fuji in the distance. I went back to get my iPhone to take a picture. Returning to where I had been standing, I took a picture of the clouds, but I wasn’t expecting the final result.

The clouds were stacking up over Mount Fuji in layers. This often happens when humid air moves up the slope, condensing clouds from the cooling air.

But Fuji itself was completely obscured from view by the clouds it was making, like a matador standing quietly hidden inside his swirling cape.

I was about to begin Write of Passage, a writing course, and my thinking was being altered in anticipation. My mind was filled with images of fountain pens, different types of software for writing, and books.

I wondered if there was an influential book that faded from view the way Mount Fuji dramatically changed the sky around itself while remaining unseen below.

Returning home after taking my picture, I Googled: “book that changed the world and disappeared from view.”

No book appeared in the results. But I discovered Gayle Jones.

A New York Times title proclaimed, “She Changed Black Literature forever. Then She Disappeared.”

A blog post, “My Decades with Gayl Jones: Reflections from an Editor,” begins with the sentence: “Gayl Jones, the highly acclaimed author who was first ‘discovered’ and mentored by Toni Morrison, has twice disappeared from our sight.”

An Atlantic article, “The Best American Novelist Whose Name You May Not Know,” by Calvin Baker, begins: “When her first novels were published, in the mid-1970s, Gayl Jones's talent was hailed by writers from James Baldwin to John Updike. Then she disappeared.”

Intrigued, I did some reading and discovered that the acclaimed Gayl Jones has had a tumultuous life, marrying a man who slit his own throat as he was about to be arrested.

Dig into her story if you are interested.

In the meantime, I have purchased her latest book from Amazon and am embarking on an exploration of her writing.

Jones writes fiction. When I read her writing, will her character be revealed by her writing, or will she remain hidden from view?

I am looking forward to finding out.