Pym_ A Novel - Mat Johnson [0]
NONFICTION
The Great Negro Plot
FICTION
Hunting in Harlem
Drop
GRAPHIC NOVELS
Incognegro
Dark Rain: A New Orleans Story
Pym is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Mat Johnson
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
SPIEGEL & GRAU and Design is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Johnson, Mat.
Pym: a novel / Mat Johnson.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-679-60382-5
1. African American college teachers—Fiction. 2. Voyages and travels—Fiction. 3. Arctic regions—Discovery and exploration—Fiction. 4. Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809–1849. Narrative of Arthur Gordon
Pym—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3560.O38167P96 2010
813′.6—dc22 2010029331
www.spiegelandgrau.com
Jacket design: Christopher Sergio
Jacket photograph: Harald Sund/Getty Images
v3.1
For Meera
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Preface
Volume I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Volume II
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Volume III
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Volume IV
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Interlude
Chapter 24
Acknowledgements
About the Author
PREFACE
UPON my return to the United States a few months ago, after the extraordinary series of adventures in the South Seas and elsewhere, which you can read about on the pages that follow, I found myself in the company of several gentlemen in Richmond, Va., who were deeply interested in the regions I had visited, and who were constantly urging it upon me, as a duty, to give my narrative to the public. Yet here our intentions diverge (at crossroads travelers may meet, then move on in different, at times opposing directions). For sociological and historical purposes they wanted me to tell my story, to enlighten them about my experience. I had several reasons, however, for declining this request, some of which concerned me alone, others less so. One issue which gave me pause was that, since I took no pictures or recordings of consequence and barely cracked my laptop during the greater portion of the time in question, I might not be able to write solely from memory an account so airtight and accurate as to leave no doubt of its truth. Another reason was that the incidents to be retold were admittedly so outrageous that, without having proof (except a single corpse who was in life a drunken, two-hundred-year-old pickle), I could only hope for the trust of my audience, and specifically those of my past associates who have had reason, over the years, to have faith in my sincerity. I knew the chances were that the public at large would regard what I will now attempt to tell as little more than the rant of a paranoid. Adding to this, I must admit an insecurity in my own abilities as a writer, that this was one of the principal causes that prevented me from complying with the suggestion of my advisers sooner.
Among those brothers outside of Virginia who expressed the greatest interest in my story, or really the part which related to my experiences in the Antarctic region, was Mr. Johnson, at the time an assistant professor of language and literature at Bard College, a historically white institution, in the town of Annandale, along the Hudson River. He strongly advised me (to the point of discomfort) to prepare at once a full record of what happened, and trust to the shrewdness and common sense of the folks to figure it out. To place it in nonthreatening story form for those who, even if they don’t believe my story, would be willing to still take a bite