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The Children of Ham
"Salt-Noody, 15, doesn't know how he got his name, but likes to paint it all over the city with an aerosol can. Dujo, 16, had a mother who was a heroin worshipper. She went into a nod one day and has been there ever since. Mumps, 16, is a flashy dresser and the businessman of the group.
When he finishes school he's going to open a chain of haberdasheries. Jill, 17, ex-prostitute, ex-junkie, avid Bible reader, graduate of both reform school and prison, wants to be a biologist and is mother to them all." -back cover
When he finishes school he's going to open a chain of haberdasheries. Jill, 17, ex-prostitute, ex-junkie, avid Bible reader, graduate of both reform school and prison, wants to be a biologist and is mother to them all." -back cover
267 pages, Paperback
Published April 1, 1977
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 6, 2012
Read this book long ago when I was scanning my mom's library. Its dated in that Harlem is nothing like what is described here, but it is a very good historical account of the pressures and lives of children who had to survive in the urban jungle of Harlem created by systemic racism and its outgrowth of alienation and poverty. Excellent read.
December 10, 2020
At the end of the book, Brown adds this note: "There is an epilogue to this book, but only time can write it."
"The Children of Ham" reads like more like a very long introduction to a novel with 13 profiles of the protagonists. Therefore, the main criticism for this book is that it is not actually a novel because the plot doesn't thicken. Moreover, the book could be read as a collection of 13 short stories based on different characters living together.
Brown envisions the lives of several youth living together in a crime infested, drug ridden, poverty stricken Harlem patrolled by racist police officers. The story captures 13 very smart, very ambitious characters getting by and supporting each other with their unique talents while constantly being tested by the shark infested streets of Harlem.
You'll find yourself rooting for them and hope that they prosper. You will want more. But with nearly no plot, you may realize very soon the lack of significance this book offers.
"The Children of Ham" reads like more like a very long introduction to a novel with 13 profiles of the protagonists. Therefore, the main criticism for this book is that it is not actually a novel because the plot doesn't thicken. Moreover, the book could be read as a collection of 13 short stories based on different characters living together.
Brown envisions the lives of several youth living together in a crime infested, drug ridden, poverty stricken Harlem patrolled by racist police officers. The story captures 13 very smart, very ambitious characters getting by and supporting each other with their unique talents while constantly being tested by the shark infested streets of Harlem.
You'll find yourself rooting for them and hope that they prosper. You will want more. But with nearly no plot, you may realize very soon the lack of significance this book offers.
July 9, 2023
This book was published in 1973 but many of the issues of police brutality, drug addiction, and inner city poverty are still around. The author chose the name children of Ham because in a racist religious doctrine black people descend from a son of the biblical Noah who condemned himself and posterity to servitude for mocking his father and worshipping idols. It seems these young people are doomed to a hard life for being African American because they are aware Whitey is keeping them down. The teenagers in this book all dream of getting out of Harlem but it seems the odds are against them due to lack of opportunity to do something else than menial jobs or engaging in criminal activity. Heroin is another evil in the book since it broke up families and created junkies who would do anything to feed their habit. If you read Beth Macy's Dopesick: you can get an idea of how it was.
January 6, 2022
I read this book as a teen in the eighties; and though I don’t quite remember each of the characters’ stories today (Jan 2022), I remember that their stories spoke to me. In fact, it is one of the few books I can recall the title and author after all of these years and immediately feel the impact that those characters’ lives impressed upon my own. Perhaps it was because I could relate to some of their struggles or knew someone who could; but it clearly was written with a paintbrush. I can almost see the neighborhood even now. It was a masterpiece for a coming of age person of color in that time, under certain circumstances. I think I may read it again.
January 8, 2018
This book took me quite a while to read because I just couldn't get into some of the stories. It tells the story of 13 children growing up in Harlem and how they were connected. I originally chose this book because I wanted to know what it was like growing up in Harlem during these times. Some of the language was very outdated but I enjoyed the history of it all. I also like the fact that this it is based on True events/people/experiences. I probably wouldn't read it again but I'm happy I read it.
September 25, 2025
A well-intentioned but ultimately futile and failed attempt to catch up with the Black generation depicted in Claude Brown's 1965 memoir, MANCHILD IN THE PROMISED LAND. Brown chose to write over a dozen short stories in trying to discover how others endured in the ghetto of Harlem. Especially welcome is his inclusion of women in this collective cycle of despair. All these stories ring true, and yet none has the blazing honesty of his autobiography. Brown might have been better off recording these stories in a non-fiction oral history of Harlem. THE CHILDREN OF HAM is a missed opportunity in portraying multiple Black lives.
May 29, 2026
“Like if you ain’t got nothin’ else and you got some frankness, that leaves you unpoor.”
A followup to the critically acclaimed and commercially successful Manchild in the Promised Land, The Children of Ham was, and is, seen as a retread, and Brown never completed his third book. In the hypocritical world of testimonial or confessional writing, his sophomore effort suffered that gravest of sins, a lack of authenticity — despite the style or contents being largely indistinguishable from his debut. Although that was a fictionalized autobiography, here we are almost explicitly dealing with fictitious as opposed to ‘real’ urban Black childhoods, and this apparently made all the difference. Case in point: regular marijuana smokers don’t recognize the shape of its leaves, which also are the only part of the plant that’s consumed. Righty-ho. A far cry from literature, it’s perhaps for the best Brown spent the rest of his professional life lecturing, as yet another volume in this vein would surely have been an exercise in futility. Both his books’ main value is extrinsic: they are by no means easy to appreciate at face value — or even finish. But they are realistic and loving portrayals of those left behind, and are important early contributions to the “own voices” movement.
Profanities were thick on the ground in his autobiography, frowned upon by the prudish contemporary literary scene, and here Brown attempts to clean up his act. Expletives have been expunged apart from a judiciously selected few, jeremiads abridged, less common expressions explained. The worst cases of drug or sexual abuse are likewise given in outline rather than graphic detail. But despite all this, the material is meant to shock, disturb, jolt the reader into making a positive contribution to social justice. This intention restricts the book to a stultifying, blinkered narrowness that is neither artful nor particularly enjoyable.
Each chapter describes the life of one of a dozen teenage squatters, roommates in a condemned building who had mostly known each other all their lives; the sole exception is a friendly neighborhood handyman. All Black or Black-adjacent (one character’s name is Juanita), they inhabit a poignant middle ground between troubled childhood and dreams of unrealizable adulthood. And so a petty thief wants to own a chain of ‘haberdasheries,’ a steady drinker and smoker who’s never played sports wants to be a football star, while an (ex?) underage prostitute yearns for middle age, seen as bringing credibility to her fantasy career of… fortune telling. The highlight of the “hopes and dreams” theme is a young boy who wants to be an ex-junkie when he grows up, inspired by the example of his brother, who receives continual pats on the back for being one such.
Unfortunately this thread’s very power reveals the shortcomings of the rest. The language is near-impenetrable, the speeches overlong and banal. By the time you reach the third or fourth chapter, this has been made amply clear, making the rest a uneappealing proposition to all but the most interested and determined readers. Apart from the neighboor handyman, persons other than the squatmates are barely mentioned; I got the impression that Brown didn’t have it in him to portray educators or social workers, but the story would have benefited disproportionately from the odd cousin or friend from a settled home at least. One last flaw I feel I should mention is heroin, referred to on nearly every page and often taking over completely, with most if not all POV characters devoting long passages to the scourge of zombie-like ‘scag fiends’ whereas for example Vietnam or Martin Luther King escape mention. There’s so little to go on here, and if you don’t like the first five pages, there’s no need to bother with the rest.
A followup to the critically acclaimed and commercially successful Manchild in the Promised Land, The Children of Ham was, and is, seen as a retread, and Brown never completed his third book. In the hypocritical world of testimonial or confessional writing, his sophomore effort suffered that gravest of sins, a lack of authenticity — despite the style or contents being largely indistinguishable from his debut. Although that was a fictionalized autobiography, here we are almost explicitly dealing with fictitious as opposed to ‘real’ urban Black childhoods, and this apparently made all the difference. Case in point: regular marijuana smokers don’t recognize the shape of its leaves, which also are the only part of the plant that’s consumed. Righty-ho. A far cry from literature, it’s perhaps for the best Brown spent the rest of his professional life lecturing, as yet another volume in this vein would surely have been an exercise in futility. Both his books’ main value is extrinsic: they are by no means easy to appreciate at face value — or even finish. But they are realistic and loving portrayals of those left behind, and are important early contributions to the “own voices” movement.
Profanities were thick on the ground in his autobiography, frowned upon by the prudish contemporary literary scene, and here Brown attempts to clean up his act. Expletives have been expunged apart from a judiciously selected few, jeremiads abridged, less common expressions explained. The worst cases of drug or sexual abuse are likewise given in outline rather than graphic detail. But despite all this, the material is meant to shock, disturb, jolt the reader into making a positive contribution to social justice. This intention restricts the book to a stultifying, blinkered narrowness that is neither artful nor particularly enjoyable.
Each chapter describes the life of one of a dozen teenage squatters, roommates in a condemned building who had mostly known each other all their lives; the sole exception is a friendly neighborhood handyman. All Black or Black-adjacent (one character’s name is Juanita), they inhabit a poignant middle ground between troubled childhood and dreams of unrealizable adulthood. And so a petty thief wants to own a chain of ‘haberdasheries,’ a steady drinker and smoker who’s never played sports wants to be a football star, while an (ex?) underage prostitute yearns for middle age, seen as bringing credibility to her fantasy career of… fortune telling. The highlight of the “hopes and dreams” theme is a young boy who wants to be an ex-junkie when he grows up, inspired by the example of his brother, who receives continual pats on the back for being one such.
Unfortunately this thread’s very power reveals the shortcomings of the rest. The language is near-impenetrable, the speeches overlong and banal. By the time you reach the third or fourth chapter, this has been made amply clear, making the rest a uneappealing proposition to all but the most interested and determined readers. Apart from the neighboor handyman, persons other than the squatmates are barely mentioned; I got the impression that Brown didn’t have it in him to portray educators or social workers, but the story would have benefited disproportionately from the odd cousin or friend from a settled home at least. One last flaw I feel I should mention is heroin, referred to on nearly every page and often taking over completely, with most if not all POV characters devoting long passages to the scourge of zombie-like ‘scag fiends’ whereas for example Vietnam or Martin Luther King escape mention. There’s so little to go on here, and if you don’t like the first five pages, there’s no need to bother with the rest.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews