All things to all men

Michael X: A Life in Black and White, by John Williams

Poor Michael. His life became a complete mess and in 1975, aged 41, he was hanged for murder in the prison in Port of Spain, Trinidad. One of the victims was his young cousin, Skerritt, a local barber; the other, more sensationally, was an Englishwoman, Gale Benson, daughter of Captain Leonard Plugge, an eccentric Tory MP. This book tells the whole story of Michael’s life and career, concentrating on the late 1960s in London, when he was at the peak of his notoriety.

It is fluently written and totally gripping throughout. On one level it is a social comedy, sparkling with celebrity names of rock-stars and the beat-hippy literati. Next it is a political comedy, with Michael receiving black dignitaries, visiting Third World rulers and — sometimes rather out of his depth — lecturing to universities and government institutions. Then the mood changes. Michael was always in some sort of trouble, but suddenly, at the beginning of 1971, he felt seriously threatened. He fled from England back to his native Trinidad. That is where the story becomes a crime mystery merging into a spy thriller.

John Williams does not believe that Michael was guilty as charged. In the case of Skerritt, the evidence against him was flimsy, mainly provided by accomplices in the crime who had been frightened into accusing Michael of promoting it. He was never tried for the Benson murder and there is nothing to show that he was present at it. Frank Plugge, who went to Trinidad to investigate his sister’s death, identified the chief murderer as her beloved companion, Hakim Jamal, a fanatical preacher of Black Power. Jamal hastened home to America where he was himself murdered by other Black Power enthusiasts, and Plugge had a fatal accident in California.