C. Richard Gillespie

 

Playwright, director and theater professor, C. Richard Gillespie, has authored Papa Toussaint, an historical novel about the liberator of Haiti. Gillespie's initial interest in theater developed during his freshman year at Principia College. He began his teaching career at Glassboro State College (now Rowan College of New Jersey). In 1961, he joined the faculty of what is today Towson University, where he founded the academic theatre program. Gillespie also served as vice president for student services in the early 1970s, during the period of campus unrest because of the Vietnam war. Gillespie served with the Seventh Infantry Division as a photographer during the Korean War. He was awarded the National Defense Service Medal and the Korean Service Medal with one Bronze Service Star. He left the army to pursue his career in the theater. He has directed more than seventy-five plays for educational, experimental, and professional theater. Gillespie is also a playwright. Two of his plays have won national awards, including "Carnivori," which won the prestigious Stanley Drama Award in 1973. In 1991, Gillespie published his first nonfiction book, The James Adams Floating Theatre. Recently retired from his active academic life, Gillespie's latest project is writing another book, A History of Maryland Railroads.Papa Toussaint is an historical novel based on the last five years in the life of Toussaint Louverture, the liberator of the slaves of what is today Haiti.

 

"I would think that none who read this book, from the most knowledgeable scholars to those who know little and have only heard the most generalized stories of Toussaint's life, will be disappointed in Gillespie's tour-de-force in revealing his view of 'the real Toussaint.' The novel is, as novel, a gripping tale. It is meticulously historical." Dr. Bob Corbett, professor of philosophy at Webster University

 

 

Pageonelit.com: Where did you grow up and was reading and writing
a part of your life? Who were your earliest influences and why?

Richard Gillespie: I grew up in and around Baltimore. My father was restless. He stayed with the job he started when he was 16 and expressed his restlessness by moving. By the time I was 16 I had lived in 20 different houses.

I cannot recall when I learned to read. I do remember persuading my mother to let me quit kindergarten because it was boring – especially pre-reading drills. First grade was better. The teacher let me read a book when other students were learning to read.

My mother enrolled my older sister and me in the Children’s Literary Guild Book Club. We received a book every month. My favorite presents for Christmases and birthdays were books. I had a number of collections. I remember the Putman Hall series about boys in a military prep school, a series about First World War aviators, another about a teenage inventor. I also read my sister’s Nancy Drew series. I learned early to read with a dictionary at hand. In high school someone introduced me to the Thesaurus. I asked for one for my birthday. I still have it.

I started to write my first novel when I was eleven. It was based on family stories about the Clearances in Scotland in the early 19th century. After writing 4 or 5 pages, I realized I didn’t know enough to complete the book. I didn’t understand what research was, and I was living on a farm and had no access to libraries.

When I entered college I planned to become a journalist. I wanted to travel the world and write human interest stories. My hero was Ernie Pyle. In my freshman year I was persuaded to try out for a theatre production. As a result, theatre became my life’s work.

 

Pageonelit.com: Why did you write PAPA TOUSSAINT?

Richard Gillespie: I was born and raised in Maryland, a border state, where segregation was part of the law. My family was not overtly racist, but accepted segregation as a natural condition of society. The first time I attended classes with African-Americans was in graduate school in Iowa. I was drafted in 1952 and sent to Korea. My company was desegregated. My world was opening.

I became interested in Toussaint when I returned to the University of Iowa to work on my doctorate. I took a course in American Public Address. Each student had to write a critique of a significant speech by an American. I choose Garrison’s (think it was Garrison’s) speech on Toussaint. It was the first I had heard of Toussaint. I decided to write a play about him.

My interest in Toussaint grew during the civil rights and anti-war sentiments of the 1960s. I realized that he fascinated me because I found in his life insights into my personal struggles with racism, revolution, and religion. Exploring his life gave me a platform through which to explore my own.

 

Pageonelit.com: Tell us about writing PAPA TOUSSAINT. You must have done a lot of research - How long did this book take to write?

Richard Gillespie: There was about thirty-five years from my first desire to write about Toussaint until I completed the novel (c. 1954-1989). There was another ten years until the book was published.

Because my background was in acting, directing, and playwrighting, I wrote a play on the subject before I wrote the novel. The play was produced at Towson University around 1971. After the production, it became clear to me that I couldn’t encompass the material in a play, and decided I needed to put it into a novel. It was a major challenge. I had never written a novel.

My first task was to widen my research. I began with everything I could find on the subject in English, but after a visit to Haiti around 1975, I worked on strengthening by ability to read French, and started exploring the work of Haitian historians. I traveled to the Dominican Republic and France for on-site research and searched the National Archives in Washington, DC, and the British Public records Office in London.

The book went through several rewrites, thanks to advice from several supportive but critical friends. A major problem I faced was finding a voice for the book. I didn’t have the confidence to write with Toussaint’s voice. I felt that the divide between a black slave in the 18th century and a white scholar in the 20th was too wide. The book began to work for me when I chose Toussaint’s adopted son as the narrator. Placide was a boundary person, a mulatto who was educated in France. As narrator he gave me a some latitude in how I presented the material.

 

Pageonelit.com: How does the life of Papa Toussaint in the 19th century compare to human rights activists today? Can you compare the activists/freedom fighters of today to the characters in your book?

Richard Gillespie: I hope that readers of PAPA TOUSSAINT find in the Haitians’ struggle parallels to revolutionary struggles today.

There is an almost mythological ardor to the Haitian Revolution. Most of the revolutionaries were recently liberated from a cruelly violent slavery. They lived in a world in which the governments of all European nations, out fear for their own safety, were vehemently opposed to the Haitians’ struggle. Even in France, the only nation to free the slaves, the majority of the population wanted slavery reestablished, primarily for economic reasons. The battle between the recently affranchised blacks and Napoleon’s forces, sent with orders to either put the blacks again into chains or to kill them – all of them if necessary - was a conflict of Armageddon dimensions.

When the Haitians won the only successful slave rebellion in history, the European nations, including the United States, refused to recognize their independence.

The issues in revolutionary conflicts today often may be less clear, but racism, economic oppression and religious differences are still paramount forces in the conflicts between the rich and the poor. It is my hope that readers of PAPA TOUSSAINT may take from the experience some understanding of the plight of the downtrodden in today’s world.

 

Pageonelit.com: At book signings, what do readers say to you about their interpretations of PAPA TOUSSAINT? What do they like about the book?

Richard Gillespie: The book signings and other presentations I have made have been under the auspicious of various organizations in the Haitian-American community in Washington, DC - most recently as part of the activities of the recently formed Toussaint Louverture Historical Society. Responses have generally been supportive. Although several Haitian-Americans who are experts on Toussaint have disagreed with some points, they have all been complimentary about the book.

Readers unfamiliar with Toussaint and the history of Haiti generally have been complimentary about the book. The strongest criticisms were from readers who were disturbed more by Toussaint employment of violence than they were impressed by his idealism, compassion, intelligence, and leadership.

The book was highly praised in a book Review in the HAITIAN TIMES.

Max Vieux, a descendent of Toussaint living in Cape Haitian, Haiti, has translated the book into French. He wants to put the book in the schools in Haiti because he believes it is the best telling of Toussaint’s story he has read. The translation is with a publisher in France and another in Montreal, but no contracts have been signed.

 

Pageonelit.com: I read that you are an award winning playwright. Have you written a play based on your book? What plays have you written?

Richard Gillespie: I noted in an earlier question that I wrote a play about Toussaint before I wrote the novel, but abandoned the play because I felt it did not accomplish want I wanted.

I have written eight plays, all produced at least once. Two of the plays won national awards for playwrighting: CARNIVORI, a play about the American military in Korea, won the Stanley Drama Award at Wagner College in 1973; and MARGUERITE, an adaptation of the Camille story, won the Western Illinois University Playwrighting Award in 1985.

 

Pageonelit.com: What would Papa Toussaint say about Haiti today? Does Haiti resemble today what Toussaint' had envisioned? Have you ever visited Haiti?

Richard Gillespie: I visited Haiti as part of my research for the book. Toussaint would be distressed with conditions in Haiti today.

Toussaint spend much of his efforts trying to unify the disparate factions in Haiti at the end of the 18th century. He defeated a British invading army. He unified the Spanish and French halves of the island. He worked to integrate the black, white and mulatto segments of the population; although in his efforts he waged a year long, bloody war against the mulatto hegemony in the south.

Toussaint was never able to fully unify and pacify the island because the government of France feared that he wanted to lead the island to independence and created obstacles to his success. Napoleon, after he became First Consul, saw the Caribbean, Mexico and the Southern United States as the bases for a French empire, and reestablished slavery in the French possessions. (The French Revolutionary government had abolished slavery in 1794.) The Haitian resistance to slavery, after Toussaint’s capture and imprisonment in France, led to a race war of disastrous dimensions from which came Haiti’s independence. Haiti has never fully recovered from the economic, sociological and psychological damage of the conditions and consequences of its origins.

If Toussaint had survived Napoleon’s machinations, or if Napoleon had been content to keep his wars confined to Europe, I think Toussaint would have led the colony into a commonwealth type of relation with France, and Haiti would be more prosperous and unified today.

 

 

Pageonelit.com: Tell me about your publishing experience -- Was it a difficult process?

Richard Gillespie: My first book, THE JAMES ADAMS FLOATING THEATRE, spoiled me with publishers. It was accepted by the first to whom I submitted a précis. The publisher, Tidewater Publishers, a subsidiary of the Cornel Maritime Press, was a delight to work with. An added bonus is that the book never goes out of print.

Publishing PAPA TOUSSAINT was a different experience. In the middle and late 1980s the manuscript was rejected by a half dozen literary agents. Finally, through the influence of a friend, an agent in New York accepted the book. She had it for two years before she gave up on it. She told me that at least two publishers were interested, subject to rewrites. I am not averse to rewriting. My experiences as an actor, director and playwright have conditioned me to reworking things, but I could not accept the requirements of the publishers. They wanted changes that would, I am sure, have made the book a more compelling novel, but which would have violated the historical accuracy of the story. Maintaining historical accuracy was more important to me that publishing. Toussaint is a major hero in the third world. Presenting an honest portrait of him was paramount to me.

When the Internet was developed in the middle 1990s, I created a home page on which I published the entire text of the book. I regularly received emails from readers, especially from Haitian-Americans, a number of whom wanted permission to print out copies. I always agreed, but with the stipulation that they could not reproduce the text for profit. Several libraries asked permission to create links to my page. Again I agreed, with the same restriction. Max Vieux, the Haitian who translated the book into French, found it on the internet.

In 1998 I received an email from what later became iUniverse, a new, on-line, on-demand publisher, asking if I wanted them to publish the book. I agreed.

Benefits offered by the publisher are that the book never goes out of print, and the publisher has no objections to my keeping the text on my home page.

Limitations working with the publisher are that it provides no editorial services, no marketing service – only advice, and because of its on-demand printing practice it does not send advance books to book stores. In-as-much-as I have little energy for publicizing and marketing the book, sales have generally been limited to the Haitian-American community.

 

Pageonelit.com: Are you working on a follow up? Or something totally different?

Richard Gillespie: At present, I do not intend to write anything further on Toussaint or Haiti. I am working on another book for Tidewater Publishers, rewriting several of my plays and planning a new monoplay. I am also developing my first photographic exhibit.

 

Pageonelit.com: What was the last book you read?

Richard Gillespie: HOW THE SCOTS INVENTED THE MODERN WORLD, by Arthur Herman.

Before that: COMING SOON!!!, the latest satirical, post-modern novel by John Barth. In the novel Barth pulls heavily from my book THE JAMES ADAMS FLOATING THEATRE for historical information.

And before that: THE LESSONS OF TERROR, A HISTORY OF WARFARE AGAINST CIVILIANS: WHY IT ALWAYS FAILED AND WHY IT WILL FAIL AGAIN, by Caleb Carr.

 

Pageonelit.com: Do you have any hobbies? What are they? How do they enhance your writing.

Richard Gillespie: My hobbies are photography, golf and travel. When I was younger I did a lot of sailing. My boating is now limited to helping a friend move his yacht in the fall from the Chesapeake Bay to Hilton Head, and back in the spring.

I think all of a writer’s experiences enhance his/her writing. As an actor and a director I am conditioned to starting every project by defining it through the lense of my own experiences. Because I am strongly introverted, it is a natural process for me.