Mendez, a Jamaican-British writer, authored the semi-autobiographical novel “Rainbow Milk” in 2020.
Scroll down for a recording of Mendez in conversation with Professor Rajani Naidoo.
Image Credit: Christa Holka
Has writing always been something you wanted to do, or did you explore other avenues before writing?
My first attempt at a degree was in automotive engineering (I lasted nine months), before I enrolled on a three-year acting course (on which I lasted three months). As a child, I would say I wanted to become a writer the way other children did astronauts, train drivers and firemen. I had (biblical) books while they had toys, and so I dreamt in the same way, but it was never something to take seriously. I was to become an elder within the Jehovah’s Witness community and hold down a humble paying job that would sustain myself, my wife and children until God’s Day of Judgement ended this current evil system and the need for money. The ministry was supposed to be my full-time preoccupation. As I grew out of that mindset, writing gradually replaced it, but I hadn’t set myself on a direct path, and felt I had to gain life experience and develop a new sense of self in the world. I always wrote for myself, but because so few black, male, queer, working-class writers were visible to me, it seemed a foolish thing to chase. Somehow, though, I never doubted I would one day become a published author. I worked in restaurants, wrote on my days off, and took opportunities to publish journalism, act in plays and narrate audiobooks when they came up.
What inspires you and gets the creativity flowing?
Deadlines.
Has your acting and voice work experience informed how you write and tell stories?
Norman, the Jamaican immigrant whose first-person narration opens Rainbow Milk, was created by means of acting and voice techniques. As a person who experienced sight loss, and who in the first place was a much bigger man physically than I am, it was important for me to understand what it would feel like for him living in a cramped house, looking after two very small, mobile children he can barely see. So I tried out life in his shoes, so to speak; I was living with a young family at the time, and their child’s toys and clothes were strewn around the house, so I blindfolded myself and tried to get around, and quickly became disoriented. In creating Norman’s voice, I did a lot of research to support the sort of man he might have been, in terms of his skill as a gardener, and his outlook as the youngest child in his family, for instance. I’m pretty good with accents and, coming from a Jamaican background myself, I was easily able to access his voice and way of expressing himself. I recorded an improvised monologue, the transcription of which became the first draft of his story.
What inspired you to write Rainbow Milk?
I began writing to trace the trajectory I underwent by leaving the community of Jehovah’s Witnesses – and the future of everlasting life I was taught would be my inheritance if I kept my faith – coming out as gay and becoming a sex worker. I was estranged from family and living in London, dealing with a sexual assault and a very uncertain future. I had no one to talk to, so I began to write personal essays to check in with myself and try to understand what had happened to me. It was from this material that I drew Rainbow Milk.
Rainbow Milk delves into issues of race, class, sexuality, freedom and religion across generations, time and cultures – how did you approach bringing all these elements together?
It happens as a matter of course because these are all qualities that are alive within me. My identity, as an Afro-Jamaican-British, queer, working-class descendant of the Windrush generation (and furthermore of enslaved people) who was raised within a religious cult, among white working-class people with whom neo-fascist parties were popular, is thoroughly intersectional, and so every event I experience, every thought in my head, everything I see, all my problematics and all responses to my presence, will be shaped by those factors.
What are your favourite books or authors?
I revere different books and authors at different times for different reasons, and at the moment, Toni Morrison stands out. I can’t think of another author who shot straight out of the block with such complex, challenging and affirming work as she did with The Bluest Eye, Sula and Song of Solomon.
Finally, what are you currently reading or any recommendations for our readers?
I’m very behind in my reading of contemporary fiction, but I’m just about to start Who They Was by Gabriel Krauze. It’s a semi-autobiographical account of a young man’s concurrent experiences as a gang member and a literature student. I’ve met him a couple of times now, and he is a special, unique and extraordinary human.
This interview was conducted in 2021
Rainbow Milk : Mendez in conversation with Professor Rajani Naidoo
This online event happened on 28th of October, 2021.
It was hosted by University of Bath Library and Bath and North East Somerset Council for Black History Month 2021.
Find out more about Mendez on their website: authormendez.com