Strength of characters
By Frank W. Rabey, The Daily Reflector
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Sometimes what you don't know can make all the difference.
Cassandra Darden Bell never really explored how the world of publishing worked. So she didn't feel bound by the first-time author's unwritten code of package-it-up-and-submit-it, package-it-up-and-submit-it, package-it-up É and the potential pile of rejection letters that so many would-be writing titans consider to be the equivalent of literary dues-paying.
She had no idea how greatly the odds were stacked against her, or any fledgling author, for that matter.
Because none of that had ever really mattered to her.
After seven years working at WNCT-TV, much of that time as an anchor, Bell shelved her career to honor what her gut told her was her true calling. Five years ago, she became a stay-at-home mom. And a writer.
She was no longer just going to dream about it, she was going to do it.
The Winterville resident self-published her first novel, “The Color of Love,” in 2002. This story of an interracial relationship wound up being added to the book list for an East Carolina University African-American lit class, alongside seminal work by such literary giants as Frederick Douglas, Zora Neale Hurston and Ralph Ellison.
On advice from friends and a former faculty adviser at ECU, from where Bell graduated in 1992, she pursued an agent through her contacts with other African-American writers.
She not only landed the agent, but the agent then landed a book deal with a media conglomerate with cultural clout and resources.
The large publishing house, a division of the BET Television network, put out Bell's next two novels under its Sepia Books imprint. The most recent, “After the Storm,” will be formally released on Thursday at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, with a 7 p.m. book signing and a chance for the public to meet this local author.
Last month, BET signed Bell for another two books.
The Greenville area has produced several novelists of note. ECU English faculty William Hallberg and Luke Whisnant, for example, both have critically acclaimed titles.
But theirs isn't mass-market fiction: You're unlikely to find Hallberg's “The Rub of the Green” in the Food Lion book aisle rubbing spines with the latest by Grisham or Crichton, or Whisnant's “Watching TV With the Red Chinese” in the airport racks next to Cosmo's “Twenty Sure-Fire Ways to Ignite Your Man” issue.
Those places are more the Terrytory of a Terry McMillan. And BET is betting it might also be the province of Cassandra Darden Bell.
“She's is possibly the region's most successful author being marketed to a mass audience,” said Arwen Parris, community relations manager for the Greenville Barnes & Noble. "She is one of our community's strongest authors."
It's only a recent phenomenon for African-American women's fiction to really pull down mass-market success.
Novelist Toni Morrison has influenced generations of writers, as have poets such as Gwendolyn Brooks and Rita Dove. Yet, ironically, the work of these African-American women, all major authors, remains largely the province of the ivory tower.
Much of that changed with Alice Walker's “The Color Purple,” published in 1982, and then adapted into a highly popular film.
Then along came Terry McMillan, with sexy books like “Waiting to Exhale” and “Stella Got Her Groove Back,” and the whole dynamic shifted — stories about strong, well-educated black women sold, and sold well.
And when McMillan's novels ended up going to the big screen, it was official: There was an audience for African-American mass-market fiction.
Bell, just shy of 36, is just about as eastern North Carolina as you can get. Though born in Brooklyn, N.Y., she was raised on a farm in Falkland.
“All I've ever really known (was) the farm,” Bell said via cell phone from her car, during a book-tour junket across the Triangle last week. “I actually grew up putting in tobacco, picking cucumbers, the whole nine.”
But she also read. Avidly, and widely.
“Through reading, I was able to be transported out of that mundane setting that Falkland often could be, to another world,” Bell said. “That started my love for the written word.”
Author Judy Blume's coming-of-age books were the beginning for Bell.
As she got older, Bell discovered African-American popular-fiction writer Terry McMillan, who was just starting to publish around the time Bell was graduating from J.H. Rose High School, in 1987,
“Picking up one of her books was just like sitting down with some girls around the table,” Bell said.
McMillan is a good jumping-off point for talking about Bell. The two authors' work has a similar “flavor,” as Bell puts it.
“Just real-life stuff (about) folks you'd have dinner with and have your daily goings-on with,” Bell said.
That was a large part of why Seodial Frank H. Deena, co-coordinator of ECU's graduate Multicultural Literature Program, has chosen to include Bell-s work in his African-American literature class.
Deena initially taught "The Color of Love," but now includes Bell's second novel, “Mississippi Blues” (BET, 2004) in his syllabus.
Her books – and Bell – are a good fit, he said.
“Students can actually identify with situations and characters in their own families,” Deena said. “They can see resemblances. She's right at home with these students here.”
Deena was likewise impressed with Bell's choice of material to cover.
“She, among more of the more contemporary writers, is dealing with issues of restoration, reconciliation, redemption,” Deena said. “These are universal themes, but they're particularly important to African-American studies.”
Bell's main characters certainly have plenty to deal with, however you label it. The author focuses on women grappling with their own evolving identities, with family crises and self-fulfillment.
“I like to deal with women, and the things that we deal with in our lives, and trying to juggle all the responsibilities,” Bell said. “It's something I know firsthand.
“Writing gives me the opportunity to kind of do my own thing but still stay abreast of what's going on in the world.”
As she talks, kid noise routinely erupts from the back of Bell's car, punctuating her every few sentences. Her children – Lauryn, Ariel and Jordan – are with her as she's out promoting the book.
“I chose this career because I wanted to be able to spend time with my kids and have them be involved in what I'm doing,” Bell said. “It's hard, but I think it's good – good for me, and good for them.”
Bell's writing career is very much a family affair. Her husband, Larry Bell, a quality engineer at Bosch in New Bern, handles publicity.
“He usually feels like (it's) his full-time job,” the author joked.
Bell's main characters don't start out as strong people; they find themselves and their hidden strengths in the journey. We get to see them grow.
“After the Storm,” set against a hurricane backdrop in Florida, gives us Jessi Andrews, overweight and out of confidence. Early in the book, Jessi discovers her husband of 10 years is doing more than just working late.
Her marriage in ruins, Jessi doesn't see herself able to go on. But she does.
“It wasn't something that Jessi made the choice of, and she made the decision, to say, ‘Hey, I can do more than this,'” Bell explained. “She was forced to do it.”
Jessi's family and dear friends rally around her, and she grows through their faith in her. She ultimately embraces her changed life, stronger for her trials.
“Women can find an inner strength in their own resilience, if they just look deep,” Bell said. “Through the challenges of life sometimes we're forced to (do that). I think that for myself, having children and then still wanting to do something that was just for me, I was forced to find the writer within me, and pursue that.
“I think that with my stories, I tend to bring that in,” Bell said. “I put my characters into situations that are difficult, but at the same time, force them into self-discovery.”
Because Bell has a clear vision of what she'd like her fiction to accomplish. To sell, sure – she certainly wouldn't turn down a book-chat with Oprah, she joked.
But also something more fundamental.
“With my characters, the reason I'm so hell-bent on showing growth is because that's something that I want to see in women,” Bell said. “You see so many people get knocked down and find it difficult to get on their feet again. By giving these examples and situations, hopefully (I) can send a message to a woman that may be experiencing something similar.
“Other women can read (it) and say, ‘No matter what my circumstance or situation is, even if it's not something desirable or what I want, I can still come out on top.”
Yet Bell has no delusions about the role fiction plays in most people's lives – it's entertainment, a means of escape.
“But if there's something there that can help someone,” she said, “then all the much better.”
Cassandra Darden Bell will be signing copies of her newest novel “After the Storm,” at 7 p.m. today at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 3040 S. Evans St. Call 321-8119.
Contact Frank Rabey at 329-9575 or frabey@coxnews.com
