Clifford's Blues
JOHN A. WILLIAMS

If there is an undiscovered aspect of the black experience, it will be found by John A. Williams.

Told in journal form, this novel is the story of Clifford Pepperidge, a gay musician performing in Europe during the thirties. After he is caught in a compromising situation with a American diplomat, Clifford spends the duration of Hitler's reign in Dachau. He escapes the worst horrors of the camp by working as the houseservant to an SS officer.

The impetus to write <Clifford's Blues> came in 1965 when the author saw a photo of two black prisoners in the Dachau museum. Over the years the image recurred to him until he began researching the history of black prisoners from the U.S., Europe, Africa, and Germany. Finding confirmation, he fictionalized his material, he says, "to both enlarge and personalize the events of that time."

This novel explores the resilience of the human will, as well as the instincts and tools we draw on to survive persecution. On witnessing one day the execution of a friend, Clifford later writes: "I thought of Revelations: 'I was dead and now I am to live forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and of the underworld. Now write down all that you see of present happenings and '<things that are still to come>.'