A Conversation: Addie E. Citchens on Dominion

Every now and again, I have the joy of getting my hands on a book that does all the things: entertains, investigates, humors, compels. Dominion, Fiction Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the premier novel by O. Henry Prize-winning author Addie E. Citchens, is, for me, that book. Perhaps it was from my own experience growing up in the Black Church, one full of as much music, family, and drama as Reverend Sabre’s Seven Seals Baptist Church in the novel, that endeared me to Dominion. Or, maybe it was my stalwart attraction to narratives of Southern women who’ve got a penchant for masquerading perfection while storing not-so-secret secrets inside the four walls of their pristine homes. You’ll find both in Dominion, which follows the lives of Mississippi First Lady Priscilla and her youngest son’s high school girlfriend, Diamond, as they navigate a world governed by the words of Reverend Sabre: “To woman He [God] gave a womb, and to the man he gave Dominion– That’s what I teach my boys because that’s what the living word say.” 

Even so, this novel feelsy less interested in re-explaining the ways patriarchal systems are built and maintained by men, and more occupied with examining how both perpetrators and victims of such systems are created and inevitably destroyed. With a tone that seamlessly ebbs and flows from jocundity to contrition, from brutal to tender, and with narrative agility ensconced between clever chapter titles (more on this later), questions surrounding the dynamics of power (who has it and what we’re willing to do to get it), love (who gives it and who takes it), are not answered, but roamed, re-charted and offered back to us as textured, layered and rich as any stew you might find served hot in the Mississippi Delta. 

Coming up on the one-year anniversary of Dominion’s release, I had the privilege of conversing with Addie E. Citchens, where we discussed the craft choices, cultural realities and personal experiences that made Dominion a reality:

1. Mississippi has had a great artistic run, particularly over the past few years. Think Sinners, Let Us Descend, Dominion. I’m curious how you believe Dominion both celebrates and stands apart from the tradition of Southern literature and Black art at large?  

Mississippi culture isn’t a monolith; the Delta is very different from the Coast which is very different from Hill Country. I think Dominion brings visibility to and celebrates that fact. I love when people from the Delta who have read the book catch the easter eggs I dropped in the text. I think the way Dominion stands apart from other Mississippi work is that it is overtly critical of the way religion as a tool of the patriarchy, has fucked over Black folk as much as racism has, which of course is all related, but that’s a conversation most Black religious folk aren’t ready to have. Also, I think Dominion, and my forthcoming work, also set in the South, differ because my work will never center racism. 

2. I will mention how intentionally Dominion handles what I’ll call the quiet parts, or a character’s internal psychology. Diamond narrates her trauma-informed behaviors, childhood memories, and environmental triggers while maintaining this hermit-like emotional reservation when expressing herself to Wonderboy. Similarly, there’s an element of hush-mouthness surrounding the First Lady, her history, mental health, and personal vices. What was your process in deciding which characters would know what, and when? How much was secretiveness and discovery a driving force behind the plot’s tension? 

I’ve read critique of the novel that speaks specifically to the things left unsaid. What I will say to that and this question is that just because it isn’t said doesn’t mean it isn’t known or there. That’s just how it works in the Delta when it comes to the hard stuff, especially during that time. It’s the I know you know and you know I know you know, but let’s engage around that knowledge. There’s an automatic tension there, an automatic disingenuity that’s always been so off-putting to me personally. So the secretiveness and discovery are very important because none of what’s “discovered” is actually a secret, and what people know about us that’s not said is often a driving force in our actions. 

3. The Black Church is such a mystifying place for many of us. It’s often the epicenter of cultural critique, from public denouncements to spiritual false prophecies or mega-church comedy skits in the vein of Druski’s. Still, folks both inside and outside of The Black Church seem to maintain a particular sensitivity toward how it’s being discussed; it’s a tricky thing to navigate, though Dominion does it very well. How were you able to critically write about such an impactful institution while understanding the complexities behind what the Church has meant and continues to mean to the Black community? Were you concerned about stepping on any proverbial, gator-bound toes with this one? 

I know the Black church intimately because the church was my childhood community. Almost every extreme about myself was developed there, and almost all of my talents were first nurtured there, so I wanted to handle it both tenderly and firmly, in the way it had dealt with me. So no, I wasn’t afraid of stepping on toes at all, but I will say, in the same way I mentioned how Black church folk aren’t ready to have certain conversations, they also aren’t ready to see themselves either. Dialogue with the church community about the book has showed me that a lot of the actual critique of the church went over their heads or was simply relegated to other folk. 

4. Dominion is a novel about place as much as it is about religion, love, longing. These regional intricacies aren’t always noticed or directly celebrated in the broader sense of Southern American Literature. Still, I felt a specific sort of spirit, musicality and flavor in the setting of Dominion that does not necessarily exist elsewhere. How important was it to you getting the regional part of the story right?  

Because the Mississippi Delta is almost always presented in a negative or, rather, backwards sort of light, presenting the story authentically was the most important part of writing for me. That included the process of choosing which regionalisms to include and what to keep out. What wouldn’t be left out is the musicality, the flavor, the joie de vivre, despite the crumbling around us. The city where I was born is one of a few cities in the area to stake claim to being home to the Blues, which is the basis of American music. Despite what might be written or said, and for better or worse, we are some cool ass, musical, beebopping, funny, real and surreal people. It’s something that can’t be faked or approximated, and if you are a writer who is from where I am from who views the state in the same way the greater public does, the magic will elude you.

 5. Titling chapters is maybe one of the most delicate structural decisions you’ll make when drafting a novel, and Dominion completely subverts this! Instead of thematically orienting the reader with chapter titles, readers are challenged with an authentic Seven Seals’ Sunday morning bulletin, complete with reference scriptures and questionnaires– such an interesting and clever craft choice. Can you speak to this decision? Was there a version of Dominion that did not include this multimodality? 

Thank you! Dominion sprang up just as it was published. My sister and I used to bring books to read at church when we were kids, and sometimes when my mama would take them, I would study the church programs. I became enamored with them, and as soon as I realized Dominion was going to be a thing, I knew automatically I would use church programs as the chapter headings. 

 6. Church bulletins aren’t the only deviation from chapter titling in Dominion. Some chapters begin numerically, something that stylistically looks closer to an inmate’s cell number or a victim’s identification number on a police report than a chapter title. This maybe isn’t too far from the truth, considering the violent content of these disembodied segments. Without giving away too much, what was your thought process behind this narrative divergence? 

 I wanted it to feel disembodied. You hit the nail on the head. 

7. The current cultural climate begs for novels like Dominion to exist, stories that don’t shy from depicting the brutality and gruesomeness suffered by those who choose to love (or trust) men who have yet to do the work of unlearning patriarchal ideologies. Dominion feels even more poignant with the braiding in of religious dogma, racial trauma, and, to put it simply, the realities of conditioned and unconditional love. Literature is not interested in answers, yet Dominion interrogates how a Wonderboy is created. I wonder, was it hard to enter this character’s perspective, and how did you balance writing a harmful character with an empathetic character?  

It wasn’t hard. I watched these types of men and boys my whole life, literally getting away with murder sometimes. They were terrifying and intriguing for me; the phenomenon was both mystifying and familiar. Part of my life has been spent wanting to be them, not to victimize others, but to be a recipient of the awesome and awful love we are conditioned to display for them. I probably should talk that out in therapy, though, huh?

8. You can’t speak about how empathy functions in the novel without bringing up Diamond. I think of Diamond and how she was written with such tenderness and intentionality, and it’s easy to empathize most with her, I think. She’s both wise beyond her years and incredibly naive, hopeful, idealistic: characteristics that feel in some ways antithetical but very authentic to her. Can you speak to the inspiration behind Diamond’s dynamic characterization?  

Seventeen is a vulnerable age. Diamond was me at 17, and she was the girls I knew: bruised and optimistic, brilliant and silly, intensely aware and also intensely unaware of what could befall them just for being.

9. Though there are elements of a love story present (I think of Wonderboy and Diamond, young, seventeen, escaping to a motel on the Gulf, and swoon!)  it becomes plain that this is no love story. It’s a story about how love leaves us when its most primal, selfless inclinations fail to endure. What are your thoughts on subverting romantic love tropes into something more authentic in storytelling?

I fucks with subversion for the sake of enlightenment, especially in love. Love is a body slam. You get a moment of flight before the fall, and sometimes that fall isn’t the end, and that’s how real relationships are. When I write, as well when I’m just Addie, I like to tell it like it is, but with panache.   

 10. So much of Priscilla’s and Diamond’s narrative arcs are informed by the men in the novel (namely Wonderboy and Reverend Winfrey). Even so, this story feels very much like theirs. Was there any point where you questioned whose story you were telling? How were you able to ultimately craft a narrative that revolves around two powerful men without recreating their dominance on the page? 

Like racism, that dominance is there even when it’s not, and like all marginalized folk, Diamond and Priscilla navigate life around that. Dominion is their story in spite of, so I felt no reason to have musty maleness squatting in the middle of it. The patriarchy kind of just is what it is.

11. This is such a richly populated story. Both Wonderboy and Diamond have siblings that manage to feel present with little to no physical involvement on the page. I was especially interested, on a craft-level, about the treatment of absent characters and how they best narratively operate. 

I think it’s the same thing with the things unsaid. The people who shape us walk with us long after they stop actual being with us. 

12. The First Lady is a truly enticing character, and you never really know what she’s up to or what she’s going to do or think next. She’s evocative in the way that only a practiced, Southern woman can be. How do you begin to craft an authentic, rounded character like hers? 

Being nosy and staying in people’s business helps. Priscilla has a bit of all those crusty and upper crust church women who shaped me in her. These women are petty and perfumed and poised and wonderful and mean, chock full of secrets, theirs and their husbands. And the thing is, everyone recognizes their complexity, except the men they love. I had to get these women right, or else I would feel like I failed. 

13. I think it’s par for the course for Black artists to infuse humor into works that also explore serious, sometimes dark subject matters, and Dominion is no different. There are some truly humorous parts throughout. Do you have any specific process-driven ways you like to add levity to your stories? 

I entertain me constantly, so I’m just funny, and my work is me.

14. There are some very complex realities that feel both tragic and victorious our protagonists are left to contend with at Dominion’s end. What would you like your audience to take away from this ending? What’s to be said about agency, accountability, freedom and consequence when its all said and done?

At home, people say: every dog got it’s day, and every bad dog got two. Ultimately what I want Dominion to do is make people question everything and every entity that purports itself as good and moral. In that same vein, I wanted people to realize the fact that dominion is relative and subject to the other’s submission, which can be revoked at any time.   

Courtney Causey holds an MFA in Fiction from Butler University. She is a Ph.D candidate in Fiction at Georgia State University and an assistant editor for Five Points Literary Journal. You can find her writing in Bodega Magazine, Joyland Magazine, and Maudlin House.