Baring it all
By CK Wolfson
Published: June 11, 2009
"Let's Get It On," by Jill Nelson. Amistad, 2009, 288 pages, $24.99.
This no-holds-barred smart sexy romp is a voyeuristic embrace into a freewheeling sisterhood of black women who celebrate, cavort, and conduct their carnal business with high style, raucous exuberance, and ferocious savvy.
Set in Oak Bluffs, author Jill Nelson - a second-generation seasonal resident of one of the homes with a wrap-around view of The Inkwell and Nantucket Sound - invests her latest novel, "Let's Get It On," with a been there, done that, authentic Vineyard voice: Circuit Avenue in summer is referred to as "Circus" Avenue, and as one character explains, "It's Oak, not Oaks, Bluffs, no s. Adding that s is a sure sign of a newcomer..."
The summer scene is described as a game of "Negro Geography," consisting of "...meeting, greeting, and connecting with people based on the understanding that if there are six degrees of separation between white folks, there are no more than two or three between the elite of color." Wanda, one of the central characters, reflects, "I've learned that having money and being on this beautiful island doesn't eliminate tribes, it just upgrades them."
Ms. Nelson revels in the rhythms, sass, and nuances of the Island's black summer society scene; the Harvard intellectuals, politicians, authors, lawyers, and most especially, the bejeweled and decked-out doyennes who call the shots as they party on State Beach, golf and lunch at Farm Neck, and wait at Post Office Square to be beeped that their tables are ready at Linda Jeans. As the characters gather, it is likely many Islanders will be laughing as they recognize composites of some Island regulars among them.
But all that is landscape. The rather outrageous plot, a sequel to Ms. Nelson's first novel, "Sexual Healing" (Agate 2003), has friends and business partners Wanda, Lydia, and Acey, along with Odell, opening a franchise of A Sister's Spa ("Women's pleasure on women's terms"), their successful full-service Reno spa and male brothel. This time their new Floating Spa venture will be housed on "Lady Lay," a luxury yacht formerly belonging to Ken Lay, anchored just off the Vineyard: manicures, massages, and multi-orgasmic experiences.
Lydia's godmother, Ma Nicol, is a matriarch of the Island's black summer society, so the ladies have "some black Bourgeois leverage." Wanda explains, "You know a girl from the Harriet Tubman Houses in South Bronx can't roll up to Martha's Vineyard and expect doors to swing open, even with a bagful of cash."
Mix in a Rhode Island mobster trying to extort profits, the threat of a violent racist group, a reactionary, fundamentalist President trying to legislate a ban that limits sex to married couples, and graphic descriptions of intercourse. Enough to make one's head spin.
But in print, Ms. Nelson, 57, the third of four privileged children of a dentist father and a businessman mother, who grew up with in Harlem, has never been one to play it safe or even to defer to convention.
A bi-monthly columnist ("On the Verge") for NiaOnline.com, former professor of journalism at the City College of New York, she is the author of the American Book Award winner, "Volunteer Slavery: My Authentic Negro Experience" (Noble Press, 1993), a scathing account of her experiences as a staff writer with the Washington Post. She also wrote "Straight, No Chaser" (Penguin, 1999), "Sexual Healing" (Agate 2003), and "Finding Martha's Vineyard: African Americans at Home on an Island" (Doubleday, 2005), which is part memoir, part Island history.
A champion of women's empowerment, she writes with authority and intelligence. Her characters quote everyone from Karl Marx to Marianne Williams to Bob Dylan. Her politics are expressed, and her heroines will not suffer for the clarity of their voices, or compromise with their principles or agendas - however startling.
Still, "Let's Get It On," is a summer read. Its quick and tidy conclusion requires no introspection or interpretation, and it is as refreshing as a double dip at Mad Martha's - uncomplicated and fun - especially for Islanders who can vet the authenticity of what is being described.
