Lawd Today!

by Richard Wright, Arnold Rampersad

Like the rest of Wright's work, his first novel was originally published as an editorially laundered version of the book he actually wrote. Now authoritative new texts, based on Wright's original typescripts, reveal the full range and power of his experimental style. The text for this first fully unexpurgated edition of the novel reinstates his stylistic experiments, and the reader encounters a far livelier work of the imagination.

Written before Native Son, but originally published several years after Wright's death, Lawd Today! interweaves news bulletins, songs, exuberant wordplay, and scenes of confrontation and celebration into a kaleidoscopic chronicle of one day in the life of a black Chicago postal clerk during the Depression.

Genres: Fiction, African American, Novels, Classics, Historical Fiction, Literature

234 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Richard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of powerful, sometimes controversial novels, short stories and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerned racial themes. His work helped redefine discussions of race relations in America in the mid-20th century.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

An early literary experiment, Lawd Today or Lawd Today! is a novel with a clear Joycean influence, taking place over one day and playing with a range of styles and forms throughout, notably newspaper cuttings and streams of fast-flowing untagged dialogue. Jake Jackson is the Leo Bloom of Chicago in the Great Depression, straining to remain unsacked from his postal clerk post, gambling and boozing with his colleagues, rolling and tumbling with femmes fatales in the whorehouse, starting and ending his day with bouts of brutal domestic violence. A lively, shocking portrait of an ordinary life, shown without judgement, bringing the rowdy, messy, boldly misogynistic world of Jake to this pasty Scottish white boy almost a hundred years after the Depression. Wright would hit his stride in the more po-faced tone of later works, but his skill for the comic and anarchic is on a par with Claude McKay et al.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lawd Today is a scalding urban novel set in Chicago during the 1930s, when it was originally written, though not published until 1963, three years after Wright’s death. Originally titled Cesspool, the book recounts a day in the life of Jake Jackson, a troubled young man who works for the post office. His salary is not equal to his spending and the misery that comes with the weight of his debts is salt on the wound of his relationship with his younger wife, a woman who he “fooled” at 17 into getting an abortion by scaring her into thinking the pregnancy would kill her. Instead the abortion almost killed her and the betrayal was discovered when Jake’s quack screws things up so bad she ends up in a hospital.

Jake doesn’t seem capable of processing the depths of his betrayal and is only angrier with her for being “sick” after the abortion. He drinks, gambles, runs around with party girls and hookers, and beats his wife. Wright is unsparing in the severity of his presentation of Jackson’s life, the role race and economic hardship plays in it, as well as the cultural impact on race and poverty, but not excusing Jackson for his own reactive, brutal bullying, his superstition, and vulnerability to cons of all kinds (numbers runners, charlatan preachers, manipulative bosses, and pimps who aren’t satisfied with part of Jake’s roll when they might have it all). He contrasts observations by Jake and his three colleagues Al, Slim and Bob, that decry how neither white nor black people will allow blacks to be successful but will tear down and trip up any success with scenes with Jake tearing himself down, wasting chances, and abusing his wife.

The story takes place on Lincoln’s birthday and a Greek chorus is provided by the radio recounting events from the Civil War and Lincoln’s speeches. Or perhaps it’s the reverse. The Greek chorus is the talk and actions of Jake and his family, friends, and acquaintances adding a contemporary gloss on the academic pomp regarding Lincoln’s birthday. In any case I am not sure that device is entirely successful, at least not in its frequency of use, but it does provide an ironic counterpoint, as well as a contrast in perspectives between the immediate and the distant, the vital and aloof. What is successful, unremittingly, is the characters, dialogue, and insight into the thoughts and actions of the urban lost. Bleak but powerful.

[Eric Heff · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The feel good book of the year! Will leave you feeling good about life!" are words that will never be said about this book. It is mean, dirty, depressing, abusive, maddening, and downright sad. Wright wanted to show society how ugly it had made it's lowest citizens, and he did a good job at that, but it was not really an enjoyable book to read. I did not all out hate the book because the point he was trying to make was interesting but it is not a book I would recommend or read again.

[Elliott Cousins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read a few of Wright’s works and researched him vigorously for my thesis, I didn’t expect to be surprised by Lawd Today. I expected it to follow the stylistic and formal conventions of Wright’s later and more pronounced works. I also expected it to be inferior to those later works due to its complex place in Wright’s oeuvre as one his earliest extended pieces of prose, withheld from publication due to his connections to the Communist Party and the general ambiguity of the work, leading to its posthumous publication. It was because of this that I anticipated to find this work an interesting snapshot of a younger, less confident Wright, a Wright with some good ideas but lacking his later tools for crafting those ideas into a gripping plot. In a sense, I was right. Lawd Today is far different to Native Son and The Outsider, both of which see their alienated protagonist undergo the trials and tribulations of life as a criminal in order to explore the social and philosophical make-up of their worlds. Unlike those novels, Lawd Today is much slower, having far less twists and turns, playing out as a simple day-in-the-life narrative. It is a testament to this novel that I have decided to rate it as highly as those others without the somewhat easier task of using thrills to maintain engagement and frame its social commentary. Because of this more fluid plot structure, Wright is able to spend longer on developing the relationships between Jake and his direct peers, including his friends from the Post Office and his wife Lil, with whom he has an extremely fraught relationship. This freedom also allows for some really engaging formal decisions which I didn’t expect from Wright, typically branded a naturalist author. The pages of this novel take some formally brave choices, such as having a card game between Jake and his friends represented visually on the page, which, along with vivid and pacy descriptions, make us feel part of the game. A highlight was one chapter purely made up of unnamed dialogue, intercut with popular poems and maxims about race and capitalism, as the men converse about the state of society from their perspective in order to assuage the tedium of work in the post office. Wright’s social commentary here is sharp as ever. This may be the work of a younger author, but it is no less confident for it.

[Mark Walter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not Wright's greatest work, but a good read nonetheless. The book is essentially a snapshot of the life of a black man living in inner city Chicago in the 1930s. It hits on many of the themes of racism, poverty, and violence in the inner city for African Americans that Wright establishes in other works, especially Native Son.

There are certainly some challenging parts to read for those who have issues with domestic violence and addiction - suffice it to say that the main character is not an admirable person - nor is he meant to be.

If you're looking for a good, rather quick read to generate discussion about what life has looked like for African Americans in the 1900s, this is a good start.

[Kim Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story is basically a day in the life of Jake Jackson. He is an angry character with a tendency toward violent behavior, often making it difficult to sympathize with him despite the difficult circumstances in his life. Throughout the story, the reader is reminded that it's Lincoln's birthday; a radio broadcast describing the Civil War and its aftermath plays as a chorus throughout. The premise is that very little has changed since the days of slavery, only the methods of bondage.

[freckledbibliophile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in Chicago during the Great Depression, the reader shadows a day in the life of a postal worker Jake Jackson. He is a scoundrel if there ever was one. Jake beats his wife and leaves her without food but borrows one hundred dollars from a usurer, and he and his buddies set out for a day of fun on Jake.

They go to a club, glut food, and liquor, party with women, dance, and have fun until it is not fun anymore. Robbed of what remained of the one hundred dollars, he later learns that the woman he had planned on hooking up with was in on the scheme.

Throughout the story, the reader listens to conversations between Jake and his comrades, some dark, disturbing, and others wholly funny.

[Nathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel focuses on the day in the life of Jake in the mid-twentieth century. Jake is Black, he lives in the city, works at the post office, and clearly has troubles. Like the story, Jake is not a happy person.

A lot of the usual themes in place for this novel, but far from Wright's best. I was disappointed with the lack of structure.

If you're new to Wright, start with Black Boy, Native Son, or The Outsider.

[Brock · Rating 5 out of 5]

A distressing novel, but the repartee between friends is a joy to read. However, the simmering anger and frustration at not being treated as a man is disturbing, and its attendant misogyny is frightful. Jake is in a downward spiral and he is taking his wife with him. There is no hope.

[Abbyofgail · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked this book a whole lot more when I started imagining it as a play. I think it would have been a very powerful play. As a book, not so much.

[Hogfather]

Lawd Today! was published in an abridged version three years after Richard Wright died of amoebic dysentery in a Parisian hospital. Although it had been written and was ready for publication more than a quarter of a century earlier, its author did not live to see it printed because, as ever, Wright wanted to write about life as it really was, and the profanity, sex, and violence described in the novel made publishers unwilling to buy it; I can't imagine the word "cunt" being used in any novel written before the 1960's.

The Socialist Realism popular during the New Deal era makes up much of the book's prose style. Wright describes the sights, sounds, feelings, smells, tastes, sensations, emotions, language of his protagonist, a black USPS clerk named Jake Johnson, to demonstrate how the immediate circumstances of his life lead him to think and feel as he does. Moments that would feel cliche in the hands of a lesser writer are brought to life because Wright manages to describe them from Jake's perspective with intense realism. He's alienated from the other members of his class; white men because his interactions with them are at best scrutinizing and at worst violent, black men because he sees their low social station and immediately describes them as idiots. He has no real compassion for women because his alienated state of being encourages him to make immediate physical pleasure his priority, so he only understands women through their relationship to his sexuality. His selfishness means that he can't achieve a class or even racial consciousness because he only understands other people in terms of how they as individuals treat him. He only perceives alienation as a fact of life, as something that simply is for every human being, and a person's class position is dependent on how smart or tough they are.

Furthermore, Jake is a man living in a state of extreme delusion because it's the only way he can justify his lifestyle and attitudes to himself. He sees himself as a victim, so he constantly tries to assert his strength over the people around him to sustain his pride. In a rare moment of self-reflection, Jake admits to his friends that he's responsible for the enfeebled condition of his wife, Lil, but he dominates and violently abuses her to keep himself from reflecting on this. He needs to justify this treatment to himself, so he projects onto her every sin that he himself commits. Wright has many electrifying moments in which he describes the physical sensations and ribald camaraderie of Jake and his friends, but he never for a second shies away from Jake's treatment of Lil. Though he avoids self-consciously condemning Jake, the starkness and honesty of Wright's portrait means that he doesn't need to.

[Khepre · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lawd Today is a tragic example of why authors should have a say in what is published even in death ie. a will. Posthumously works can provide value in an author bibliography but sometimes it can highlight and embolden the biggest critiques about an author. Lawd Today does the latter. Often choppy and erratic, Lawd Today shows its age. And embolden that misogynoir critique that even Zora Neale Hurston pointed out while he was alive. This being the second or third Wright book I have read that has been published after his death, I do feel like Wright's bibliography post death suffers from devious money grabs from his estate and publishers who is trying to make a quick money grab. Rather than refining his works or giving these manuscripts to his contemporaries to embolden his ideas, they hastily release first drafts that consistently have potential to stand next to Native Son and The Outsider but falters ever so quickly. A mess

[Al · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wright's first novel, a melange of styles, covering one kaleidoscopic day in the life of a dissolute black postal worker in Chicago during the depression. Wright's depiction of Jake's feckless, violent life does nothing to dignify him. If written by a white author, this book--at least in today's world--would be excoriated as racist, since Jake displays absolutely no redeeming qualities or sense. Perhaps it's best read as a disturbing period piece, and an insight into the mind of an author who would go on to write a real classic, Native Son.

[Gabi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Je sais que c'est une histoire entre les deux guerres donc les mentalités sont différentes, et que ce livre voulait aussi décrire le quotidien d'un afro américain à cette époque, MAIS j'en pouvais JUSTE PLUS de jake qui traite sa femme comme un sale clébard jvoulais le plonger dans le coma le plus profond humainement possible j'ai juré je hais de toute mon âme ces hommes là qui veulent pas essayer de réfléchir à leur problème comportemental
Ma pauvre Lil

[Vincent Lombardo · Rating 1 out of 5]

In his foreword to this edition, Arnold Rampersad writes that this novel is "dramatically pessimistic". If the first chapter is any indication, this book is unrelentingly pessimistic, and bleak and depressing, too. Moreover, one of the main characters, Jake, is extremely unlikeable and unsympathetic. I gave up after the first chapter.

[Brooklyn Sr · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.8
Solid book with interesting story about a brotha named Jake in Chicago. Not Wright’s best but definitely worth the read

[Susan Molloy · Rating 4 out of 5]

🖋️ I enjoyed this required reading for a college course I took.
📙Published in 1963.
✿▬✿✿▬✿

[Uriah O'Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bruh

[amelia marie]

won't rate, shan't rate

[Brooke Cousins · Rating 4 out of 5]

i don’t care what the Sunday Review says i never once felt for that abuser

[Adrienna · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this novel, there is expletives, and Black people arguing about non-sense but feel it is better to own some property or have money instead of talking. Also mentioned was the craw fish (some say crab) in the barrel mentality to bring others down who are doing well.

Jake's wife has a tumor (sick again) and cusses at her because of the medical expenses on his post man's (postal clerk) income. Doc offered to help.

Favorite part of the novel was discussing the importance of faith, cannot do anything without God and the Lord's angels will watch over you to avoid one going crazy. If they know too much or wanted to know too much, felt it was God's way to allow them to go crazy (page 70). Many are called but few are chosen.

What was well-taken from this read is about men secret anger, taking their frustrations by beating on their women and cursing them out and want to be in control with the power of their hand otherwise noted as being too easy on them. There were some jovial dialogue, and views of the scripture sayings mostly used.

2.5 stars. I prefer his other books: Native Son, Black Boy, and I believe I even liked The Outsider.
*Amazingly how far we've come, or have we? after reading this novel in staged in the earlier 1900s.

[Michael David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven't read anything else by Richard Wright because I am not fond of African-American literature. I bought this book simply because the cover was attractive, and it was cheap. Jake is an abhorrent creature: he beats his wife even though she's suffering because he impregnated her and instead of taking her to a good doctor brought her to a quack. He's lazy, and wastes his meager income on vice - and beats his wife some more.

I think Richard Wright merely points out that the black man doesn't need any more help fucking his life up, because he does it freely by himself. By the end of the novel, Jake Jackson is even deeper in debt, about to be terminated from his job, and tries to kill his wife, who in spite of everything, loves him.

What was revealing was how African-Americans were prejudiced against Filipinos!

And they thinks they's too good to marry a black woman. They got to marry white! Hell, they's colored just like we is! (p. 152)

This is colonial mentality at work. It's still present in the Philippines, even today.

[Noel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. It showed the reality of a character named Jake, who is black, and struggles to make a living at a post office. The main character is not a very likeable character, especially concerning his treatment of his "woman". The writing is not as good as The Outsider or Nativeson and Blackboy but it is raw, especially the arguemtns between the main character and his wife. This young man's view of himself, his race, his friends, his life and the oppressor, shows his humanity through all mentioned perspectives. I read James Baldwin's "Notes of a Nativeson" and one thing he criticizes Wright about is the characters sometimes seem unreal, too two dimensional. Whereas, i would argue Baldwin's point is not evident in Wright's book "Nativeson", it is evident in "Lawd Today". It is a sad and violent story.

[Leanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book about black men just trying to get through the day. I felt this book could have been realistic for the time period in which it was written. I didn't like the way it ended but really it just ended like any day would that you JUST made it through... with an "Oh Well".

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderfully scripted day in the life of an African american man. The characters are well developed, and the situations easy to envision. The reader can actually place themselves within the story and experience the happenings. One of Richard Wright's more light-hearted works

[Nathaniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I have to respect where and who this novel came from, the amount of misogyny, racism, and degradation of women in general, in addition to the despicable main character, made it a difficult and trying read.

[Susan]

This is too depressing to read right now...