CBR10Bingo: White Whale I know why this book sat on my shelf for so long. I read Giovanni’s Room several years ago, and while I loved James Baldwin’s writing, I really did not care for the story, particularly the way it ended. I’ve picked up Go Tell It on the Mountain several times when looking for my next read, and each time, I put it away, never quite in the right mood for this book that felt too heavy with expectation and history, like a […]
It’s not possible to forget anybody you’ve destroyed.
This novel came out in 1962 and deals with various love….triangles, quadrangles, quintangles…the entire sexual framework of the USA as it deals with bisexuality, homosexuality, heterosexuality, and queerness in general. It also deals with those same issues as they relate to race, black and white identity, Americanness, African-Americanness, and even Frenchness/French Colonialness. All of this leads to an earnest and devastating novel that bloodied and beautiful mix of pain, sadness, love, sexual energy, and violence. There’s some parallels and similarities to a few other writers […]
Yours, Mine & Ours: Confronting American Racism
Reviewed with Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me I started reading The Fire Next Time in the wake of the 2016 presidential election, reeling from the choice that my fellow Americans made and wondering where it all went wrong. Given my liberal/progressive bent, I was personally devastated and still am, and as the data came rolling in about Trump supporters, I was absolutely disgusted and enraged. Whites, including white women, went for Trump. Christians, including Catholics, went for Trump. And despite the initial assumption […]
I Need To Talk About This With Someone
I originally posted a different review of this book. Two days after finishing it I’m still trying to gather my thoughts into a coherent commentary. This book includes two separate letters – one to Mr. Baldwin’s nephew. That letter is quite short. The second letter takes up the vast majority of the book, and tells stories of Mr. Baldwin’s experiences in Harlem, in the church, and meeting with the leader of the National of Islam. A book I read a couple of weeks ago, “Between […]