Mat Johnson 1971(?)–

Novelist

At a Glance…

Sources

In 2000 Philadelphia native Mat Johnson published his first novel, Drop. Critics lauded Johnson’s debut, often mentioning his name in the same breath as James Baldwin and Richard Wright. A former regular columnist for New York’s Time Out magazine, the Harlem resident began work on his second novel shortly after Drop’s publication.

Johnson was born and raised in Philadelphia. While in his twenties, Johnson moved to London, where he remained for about three years. He spent some time at a university in Wales and also lived in Brixton, the south section of London below the Thames River that houses many black residents. Johnson found many similarities between Brixton and Harlem, the mainly black section of New York City. Like Harlem, Brixton is hip, set apart from the rest of the metropolis, and mainly populated by members of the working class.

When he ran out of money, Johnson returned to his hometown and worked for about a year as an electrician. He then moved to New York City, where he earned a master’s degree at Columbia University. He also worked as a copywriter for MTV Networks during this time.

While at Columbia, Johnson began work on his first novel, and by graduation, he had completed a rough draft of Drop. The novel, however, was not Johnson’s first attempt at fiction. “Before, I’d been trying to do Toni Morrison Knockoffs,” Johnson told Interview. “That was my idea of what a writer should be.” But with Drop, Johnson had found his own unique voice.

Drop was published in 2000, and Johnson’s voice was praised by critics. “Johnson’s talent is obvious from the get-go,” The Washington Post’s Jabari Asim enthused. “I especially like the way he injects snappy jazz into his sentences, successfully deconstructing Big Ideas while resisting the urge to show just how smart he is.”

As the story unfolds, several “Big Ideas” emerge. “Some people who first read the book said, ’It’s about this guy who hates being black,” Johnson told Interview. “… it’s not that. He loves being black; he just doesn’t like being poor.” The protagonist, Chris Jones, is, like the author, a Philadelphia native. The novel introduces Jones as, according to The Washington Post, “poor and broke, alone, thirty-one-years-old and only just finishing as an undergrad at a third-rate Pennsylvania state college.” With few prospects for a young black in the city, Jones accepts an offer to join another young black, David Crombie, in a start-up shop in London. “This is going to be massive,” Crombie tells Jones, according to The Washington Post. “Two black boys, in pretty black Brixton town, in a very white and very old city that won’t know what hit it.” But Crombie is a drunk, and other complications eventually send Jones wearily back to West Philly, the city he despises. But with the help of his best friend, Jones reaches an understanding: “Funny how much nicer this town was when you couldn’t feel it sitting on you,” he concludes, according to The Washington Post.

Jones’s journey reveals one of Drop’s “Big Ideas.” A Kirkus review found at Amazon.com noted that one of the novel’s themes was “the young American who travels

At a Glance…

Born Mat Johnson c. 1971; in Philadelphia, PA; married. Education: Columbia University, MFA.

Career: Author. MTV, copywriter; Time Out magazine, columnist, “Utter Matness,” published novel Drop, 2000.

Awards: Thomas J. Watson Fellowship.

Addresses: c/o Bloomsbury Publishing, 175 Fifth Avenue, suite 300, New York, NY, 10010

abroad to forge a new identity but ends by discovering that he is far more American than he’d realized.” Unhappy with his life in Philadelphia, Jones finds a sense of liberation in London. But “in scenes both corrosively funny and bittersweet,” the Kirkus review stated, Jones “discovers that he has an innate American sensibility not so easily discarded.”

In December of 2000 Johnson discussed Drop during an online chat found at About.com’s New York: Harlem/Uptown site. In the book, Johnson portrays black Africans making fun of African Americans, and these scenes sparked several questions from readers. “I used to live with Nigerians, and it was a huge lesson, of class and of history,” Johnson explained on About.com. Johnson’s Nigerian co-habitants had launched cotton-picking jokes at him and acted more like well-to-do whites than the people he had grown up with. He explained on About.com, “I had never been around solidly upper-class black folks before who didn’t care about slavery, had no concept of black as an identity.” Johnson drew on these experiences in order to add another dimension to the novel. As he said on About.com, “Drop in many ways, not directly, is about looking at an international Black world, one you rarely see.”

Johnson described his writing routine as sporadic. “I’m a streak writer,” he said on About.com. Sometimes writing feverishly for a month or two, only to find himself out of creative fuel. “I can write 150 pages in a month then go dry for a year,” Johnson said on About.com. Despite his speed, however, Johnson still labored over each word and line, carefully crafting his sentences like, as he said in the About.com online chat, “a castle of toothpicks.”

Until 2000, Johnson was regular columnist for New York’s Time Out magazine. His column, entitled “Utter Matness,” dealt with a wide breadth of issues—some funny, some serious, but all thought-provoking.

Johnson began work on his second novel in 2000. The story, he decided, would center around a real estate agent who kills the poor in order to sell their apartments to rich buyers. Johnson planned to set the literary horror/suspense in Harlem’s Mount Morris Park because, as he explained in the About.com online chat, “I love the creepiness of the brownstones.” Although his second novel was set in Harlem, Johnson was sure that Philadelphia would be the subject future works. He said in the About.com online chat, “Philly is my home. [James] Joyce got Dublin, but Philly’s mine.”

Sources

Periodicals

Interview, September 2000.

Washington Post, October 17, 2000.

Online

http://www.amazon.com.

http://harlem.about.com/library/weekly/aa122100a.htm (July 14, 2001).

—Rose Blue and Jennifer M. York