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A groundbreaking first novel shows how its young black protagonist tests the limits of sexual freedom
The black male body has long been both feared and prized by white artists. Colin MacInnes’s 1957 novel City of Spades, with its depiction of the lead character’s “handsomely ugly face, animal and engaging”, was one example of veiled infatuation. In The Black Book, Robert Mapplethorpe’s lascivious delight in his naked African American models, photographing the body parts he considered “the most perfect”, was perhaps a more honest account of the white gaze. What path does a black writer take in navigating the perils of such fetishisation? It’s a question addressed by Paul Mendez’s erotic and fearlessly explicit debut, Rainbow Milk.
The novel begins with a Jamaican couple, part of the Windrush generation, who arrive in a 50s Midlands town and soon regret their decision to move there: “We leave the Garden of Eden ... and find Sodom and Gomorrah.” Their misfortune will be visited on subsequent generations. After 50 pages, it’s now 2002 and we meet their grandson Jesse, the naive young black protagonist, who has fled his home in Wolverhampton and is struggling to make a living in London as a fledgling rent boy. Continue reading...