At first glance, George Elliott Clarke’s prose novel I &
I seems to follow a familiar formula. Boy meets girl, girl’s family
doesn’t approve, boy and girl run away, and after a seemingly
accidental violent incident, both go on the run. And as the tragic
romance of rich, white Betty Browning and the black boxer Malcolm Miles
unfolds, Clarke indeed makes the requisite nods to Romeo and
Juliet and Bonnie and Clyde. But in a novel jam-packed with
cultural and literary allusions, these references swirl by in a
maelstrom of blood, booze, sex and food. Even Clarke’s version of 1970s
Halifax feels deliriously alien; north end gangs dig up corpses in
order to bury them properly while “brass knuckle pimps” and other
lowlifes rule the streets. Clarke lets the story unfurl with his
trademark gusto, lingering over scenes of beauty and gore with the
lip-smacking verve of a bawdy Wilfred Owen. Strangely, though, it’s his
rendering of the book’s biggest villain, the libidinous bible college
professor Lowell, that rings the most sharply. When Lowell meets his
inevitable end—with his gaping mouth “hot and raunchy/Inside, an
adult, genital pink”—it comes across as the most obscene act in a
story filled with vile characters and dirty deeds.
This article appears in Apr 16-22, 2009.
