Catherine Lord’s monumental book The Effect of Tropical Light on White Men uses as its structure the commonplace books of Dr. Henry Alfred Alford Nicholls who emigrated to the island of Dominica when it was one of the fifty-nine colonies of the British Empire. From 1875 until his death in 1926 Nicholls was the island’s chief medical officer. He had a mountain named for him, was a plantation owner with servants, and fathered ten children (though it’s implied there could have been more). Lord was born in Dominica in 1949 and lived there until her father sunk his island lumber business and relocated the family to Iowa. She went on to become a notable critic, artist, curator, professor, administrator (and former editor of Afterimage) who has authored several image-text narrative experiments like this one.

In 2001 Lord traveled to Dominica while recovering from breast cancer treatments. During her time...

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