The Angry Ones

by John A. Williams

The Angry Ones is a powerful story of the hidden and (unacknowledged) racism that faces an educated black man in the professional world and the painful truths that warp interracial sex. Steve Hill, a young black army officer, travels east from California to New York in search of a simple a secure job with a future. He lands a position as a publicity director for a vanity press, and his experiences soon rip the facade of hypocrisy and condescension from a liberal and superficially hip society with its own peculiar political and sexual agendas. Based on the author's own experiences, The Angry Ones is a searing look at the hidden conflicts and compromises underlying black-white relations.

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

175 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

John Alfred Williams was an African-American author, journalist, and academic. His novel The Man Who Cried I Am was a bestseller in 1967.

His novels are mainly about the black experience in white America. The Man Who Cried I Am, a fictionalized account of the life and death of Richard Wright, introduced the King Alfred Plan, a fictional CIA-led scheme supporting an international effort to eliminate people of African descent. This "plan" has since been cited as fact by some members of the Black community and conspiracy theorists.

In the early 1980s, Williams, and the composer and flautist Leslie Burrs, with the agreement of Mercer Ellington, began collaborating on the completion of Queenie Pie, an opera by Duke Ellington that had been left unfinished at Ellington's death. The project fell through, and the opera was eventually completed by other hands.

In 2003, Williams performed a spoken-word piece on Transform, an album by rock band Powerman 5000. At the time, his son Adam Williams was the band's guitarist.

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

John A.^^^Williams

Reviews

[Cody · Rating 4 out of 5]

This, John A Williams' debut, is unsurprisingly fantastic. Just a few stray observations:

-Williams is the most unsung of the so-called 'Black Arts Movement' authors, despite being a coeval and every bit as talented as Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Baldwin, and anyone you care to name. He carved a significant portion of the lane that would later be populated by giants like Morrison, William Melvin Kelley, Gayl Jones, William Demby, and on and on.

-The time for his reappraisal and election to l'Academie is overdue; I hope to see it in my lifetime.

-No one, with the possible exception of Wesley Brown, writes about jazz better than Williams. How? He writes jazz. Williams' castaways obviate something like "Sonny's Blues" without even shrugging.

-Why? Because Williams, per the first clause above, lived far closer to the blues at the heart of jazz than his more famous peers. He was kept there; if in doubt, just check that cover. He was ghettoized and made solvent, packaged and advertised as pulp fiction for the white reader wanting to get the 'real dope' of Black life's salaciousness. In short, fantasy. This isn't that.

-Damning: Williams wasn't even allowed to name his own book. This is titled by the author as 'One for New York,' but the publisher insisted that signifiers like 'angry' moved more units when the author was Black. What the fuck does that say about the legitimacy of the entire proposition and our own lens' clarity? Mass forms go through the cultural strainer, and bolts of cloth are never whole, no matter how much some protest otherwise.

I may flatter myself with many things, but never altruism. Conversely, Williams never dropped anything but dimes, and the dissonance between those two truths is something we're each independently challenged with reconciling. The only way to fail this test is by not taking it.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This John Williams deserves a renaissance of his work as much as the John Williams who wrote Stoner. I don't know why this author and book aren't better known.

I first read this book 14 years ago, but my copy then was called One For New York.

Steve Hill, a Black writer returns to New York in the 1950s after finding it impossible to get work in Los Angeles. Williams shows with amazing clarity how relentlessly difficult it was for Blacks to get jobs, housing, or just walk down the street. The only job related to Steve Hill's chosen field that he can find is working for a vanity press where they know they can underpay him to do a job that turns out to be more about perpetuating a con game on unsuspecting "authors" desperate to get their work into print.

Embodied in Steve's boss, the inclusion of gay stereotypes of the day and the trope of the predatory gay man is kind of jarring to read in 2020, but it certainly does highlight the fact that white gay men don't always connect the dots between their own oppression and the oppression of others. (Not to mention Williams' own challenge at the time making the connection between his oppression and the oppression of gays. As much as inclusion of the gay boss makes that point, it doesn't necessarily feel like Williams' intentions in that regard were deliberate.)

An emotional, enlightening slice of life in 1950s Manhattan. Well worth your time.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a powerful work written in short declarative sentences, Mr. Williams packs a lot of punch in his prose. Originally published in 1960. It is partly autobiographical, I believe.
Steve, a college educated, Army Veteran "Negro" moves to NYC to create a career in publicity. He is hemmed in on all counts because of his race. Many were quite open with him that race was the defining factor in his not being hired. The author creates a powerful understanding of what it is like to be African American and how frustrating and maddening it is to be judged by that one characteristic. The aspect of the work that is a bit frustrating is that there is a Jewish woman who Steve goes out with that is neurotic and does psychoanalysis and a gay character that is also treated as a stereotype.
Having said that, this book allowed me to get a more visceral understanding of being judged by the wider world for no reason other than prejudice.

[RK Byers · Rating 3 out of 5]

"revolution" is chasing white women, i guess...

[J. Fakename · Rating 4 out of 5]

The strain and effort of putting on a face for the world.

[Bright Chike]

The book tells of racism in the North, which is usually not talked about as opposed to the south. Through the eye of the protagonist we see what life is was for an average educated man in Newyork city:interracial relationships, exploitations, and the culminating frustration that follows, which made him make some life changing decisions.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A window into a black man's life in NYC in the 1950s. It wasn't easy going.