The Motion of Light in Water
Samuel R. Delany
520 pages
published in 1988

Samuel Delany is one of the more interesting American science fiction writers. For a start, he is Black, in a genre that has always been somewhat ...colourless so to speak. He was one of the primary writers of the American branch of the New Wave movement, though he published his first novels long before this movement got started. He always followed his own path in fact, it was more that his own development as a writer dovetailed with the development of the New Wave. His science fiction has always been informed by more traditional literary values as well as other interests outside the genre and has always been ambitious. He was also openly gay at a time when that was still illegal and not afraid to use gay characters in his science fiction, again something of a rarity for a genre that so long had been neutered.

All of which makes his autobiography essential reading. The Motion of Light in Water is interesting even if you couldn't care less about science fiction. It is, as the sub title "Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village" makes clear about much more than just writing science fiction. It is largely set within the years 1960-1965, though Delany also spents a lot of time on his youth, as well as some fast forwards to later events.

What The Motion of Light in Water is, is the plainly told coming of age story of a young Black gay man in the East Village. Delany holds nothing back: his casual sexual encounters with various unknown men out on the prowl is just as lovingly told as his more "highminded" pursuits. In doing this, Delany is not looking for judgement, be it positive or negative, he's just telling whta his life was like. He does this without embellishment: I never got the impression he was trying to impress his readers or improve a story.

Delany writes well, which I knew already, here in a much more restrained style than in his novels, with a sort of natural poetry and elegance that suits the book well. Much of the meat of the book are the sort of mundane events and developments common to most people's lives, but he tells about it in a way that it is as interesting as the more idiosyncratic moments in his life...

This is in short a book that is of interest to both science fiction fans as well as people interested in Delany's portrait of a New York long gone. More so, The Motion of Light in Water is one of those rarests of books, a biography that is interesting to read even if you are not interested or familiar with the person the biography is about...