Native Son is a challenging book for a lot of reasons. The language is rather straight-forward, but Wright gives us a character that commits first by accident, then on purpose, some of the most heinous crimes imaginable and asks us to reckon with it as readers. He does this through a trial scene that does not show us someone innocent being railroaded by the justice system, but by someone on trial for crimes they did commit being railroaded by the whole capitalistic system of the […]

  “Native Son” was on a reading list recommended by my University English department and since I’ve read maybe 5 African American novelists in my entire life, I felt it was time to start expanding my reading base. I made the mistake of reading the introduction first instead of just jumping into the novel, which ruined the experience for me a little since it gave away most of the plot and led me to expect a very different story than the one I actually read. […]