Readers are transported to the bustling Black community of 1930s Black Bottom Detroit, and the organized crime, turf wars, and booming music scene that colored the day in “Sins of Survivors,” the debut novel written by cinematographer Joe McClean, presented by Golden Globe-nominated actor and producer Blair Underwood. The fictional story centers around thriving Prohibition era businessmen and brothers Jasper and Benjamin Carter, who migrate North after their father is lynched during their childhood in Alabama. While the story itself is made up, the Black Bottom community was a real neighborhood that was demolished more than 60 years ago.

“I love history,” McClean said in an interview. “While I was there [in Detroit] researching, I was a hundred percent living in the museums and trying to find old buildings that were either warehouses or completely torn down [by the time McClean got there]. The main drag in Black Bottom was Hastings Street and it is quite literally a freeway now. It’s gone, it’s wiped off the planet, which is why most people don’t know about it.”

Black Bottom was leveled during the 1950s and 1960s as a result of the same urban renewal initiative that saw Black communities in other parts of the country get erased by government-led land redevelopment. In Black Bottom, the program primarily made way for the construction of the Chrysler Freeway.

 

“The neighborhoods like the southside of Chicago, or areas in Harlem, we know about because the government did not successfully knock them down,” McClean explained. “And this Black Bottom neighborhood is one that they got. There’s an effort now to sort of revitalize that, and I hope by telling this story we can remember the incredible importance of this place.”

McClean and Underwood met through a mutual friend several years ago, when McClean had begun writing “Sin of Survivors” as a TV series. The idea grabbed the attention of Underwood, who has also produced seven other books through his Blair Underwood Presents imprint. “Sins of Survivors” is published through Underwood’s imprint, underneath the larger umbrella of HarperCollins Publishers.

“I was fascinated because I had done a play about four or five years prior to that, called ‘Paradise Blue,’ written by Dominique Morisseau,” Underwood recalled. “And when I did it, I had never heard of Black Bottom, and deeper than that, most everyone I talked to — Black and white — had never heard of Black Bottom Detroit. So I was really intrigued when Joe knew all about this place and this time when it thrived.”

Prior to acting in “Paradise Blue” in 2015, which was set in 1940s Black Bottom, Underwood knew a great deal of the Great Migration, and other notable Black communities at the turn of the century like Tulsa in Oklahoma and Rosewood in Florida. However, Underwood was struck by “the specificity of Detroit and Black Bottom. The specificity of Paradise Valley, which was the entertainment run through Black Bottom where so many great artists came and thrived. It was such a musical hub and dynamic place for entertainers before Motown, and Motown didn’t happen in a vacuum, it’s on the shoulders and back of Black Bottom, and those artists and entrepreneurs.”

Joe McClean

Music is an important element in “Sins of Survivors,” with McClean taking every opportunity to mention the artists who performed in Black Bottom, and highlight the significance that music played in the community. The book even includes lyrics from famous artists of the day, when possible.

“You cannot divorce Detroit from the music, it’s impossible,” McClean said. “In the Cotton Club in New York it was Black music with a White audience until 2 a.m., and then they would leave and the Black audience would come in. But at that time in Paradise Valley, these audiences were mixed Black and White. So they were able to get these gigantic names — the Ella Fitzgeralds and Count Basies and Fats Wallers — into these small clubs because they wanted to experience this new thing that was happening there.”

“Sins of Survivors” features mob stories, forbidden love affairs, crime and fashion of the day included with a cinematic flare that McClean brings as writer and director of multiple films like 2017’s “The Drama Club,” and the upcoming film “Viral” which is being directed by and stars Underwood. The book is the first of two in a series that will continue to follow the legacy of the Carter brother across generations.

“The book gets far more in-depth than the original script that I wrote,” McClean explained. “I had to really dive in because the screenplay is just the blueprint for the movie. With the screenplay you’re going to rely on the cinematographer, and the director, and the score, and the costume, but as the novelist you’ve got to create all of that.”

“It’s a great summer read, it’s a fun read,” Underwood added. “And also you’ll take a journey through a place and time that most people haven’t seen, so I hope people become connected to these characters, become invested in these characters, fall in love with these characters and follow their journey.”

“Sins of Survivors” is available now in-store at Barnes & Noble, as well as online via Barnes & Noble, bookshop.org and Amazon.