Sherman E. Pyatt’s latest book, Standing in the Gap, is a departure from the non-fiction archival and historical work he’s known for — but the Charleston author’s trademark knowledge and insight into local Black history and Gullah culture remains front and center.
Standing in the Gap, Pyatt’s first novel, blends his life experiences growing up on Orrs Court in Charleston with summers on Wadmalaw Island where his grandmother Emma Russell Pyatt was born.
In Pyatt’s make-believe world, Gullah dialogue conveys the real-life communal and spiritual nature of the language’s namesake culture and what it means to “stand in the gap.”
This story revolves around Jacob Rouse, 11, who assisted the island’s midwife, Ella Mae, during his aunt’s delivery of her first child. Ella Mae also assisted in Jacob’s prolonged delivery. His was a special birth.
“Dat boy fight me from dayclean an’ through de night,” Ella Mae says. “Lawd hab mussy … Lemme tink some mo’ on dat … I ‘membub now. Jacob wuh born early de next day … and wid de veil over ‘e head.”
In Gullah culture, it is believed that a child born with a veil over its head is gifted spiritually and stands in the gap between heaven and earth, Pyatt explained. The thin membrane that wraps a baby while in its mother’s womb in Gullah culture is called the veil.
Pyatt said he was born with a veil over his face. His older relatives told him that when he was 6 years old, “I used to see a man standing in our house,” he said. “The elders paid close attention to my dreams.”
According to Pyatt, when he dreamed of a wedding, his family braced for a funeral. When he dreamed of fish, they anticipated a pregnancy.
After Jacob’s mother dies from tuberculosis, he leaves Wadmalaw when he is 13 to live in Charleston. An uncle raises him as a son.
As Jacob adapts to big city life, he talks with the ancestors in his dreams. They guide him along the path to manhood.
When Pyatt was a boy, his family gave him examples of what it means to “stand in the gap” for those in need, he said.
As a boy on Orrs Court, Pyatt wondered why his cousin on Wadmalaw gave his family wild game and seafood from the island. He also didn’t understand why his grandmother told him to do errands for elderly women in the neighborhood in the city without taking money for it.
Later in life, Pyatt began to understand that when his relatives on Wadmalaw had extra food they’d share it with their relatives in the city. “My grandmother took this same concept, and she [shared] my services with the ladies in the community,” he said.
Pyatt said he didn’t have a relationship with his biological father. In his novel, however, he created strong male figures.
“Even though they may not be central figures, they are there. I have uncles who have families, and these guys stay with their wives. And these men also help Jacob in a rite of passage from a boy to a young man.”
Standing in the Gap is a window into the uniqueness and West African origins of Gullah culture. Pyatt wants readers to know how the culture was preserved on Wadmalaw, and in other isolated coastal communities, from Wilmington, N.C., to St. Augustine, Fla.
But as sea islanders moved away and came to Charleston and other urban centers, the culture changed, he explained. “But it still exists, and it is a culture that should be embraced and not overlooked.”
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