Joy & Pain

by Rudolph Fisher

Follow me on a journey to Harlem, the black capital of America. To the glory days of the Cotton Club and the Savoy Ballroom, to a time when swing was king and bets were taken as to who could jitterbug the hardest and lindyhop the longest. To the Harlem of Malcom X's youth where the hustlers, pimps and prostitutes rubbed shoulders with the lawyers, doctors and street corner preachers, and where black was not only beautiful, but was also driving a shiny new Cadillac with out-of-state plates. From all over America black people flocked to Harlem believing the streets to be truly paved with gold.Harlem ain't that easy. As Miss Cynthie discovered when she arrived there to see her grandson, leaving her whistle-stop home in the countryside for the first time in seventy years. While King Solom Gillis, on the run from a lynching party in the Deep South, arrives in Harlem determined to make it big time. But Harlem ain't that easy and before Joy & Pain is over, Harlem would have swallowed him up. Joy & Pain will make you laugh, make you cry and make you wanna holler.

183 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1997

About the author

Born in Washington, DC in the late nineteenth century, Fisher grew up in Providence, Rhode Island graduating from Classical High School and attending Brown University. He earned his Bachelor of Arts from Brown in 1919, where he delivered the valedictory address, and received a Master of Arts a year later.[citation needed] He went on to attend Howard University Medical School and graduated in 1924.

Fisher came to New York City in 1925 to take up a fellowship at College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, during which time he published two scientific articles of his research on treating bacteriophage viruses with ultraviolet light. Fisher married Jane Ryder in 1925, and they had one son, Hugh, who was born in 1926.

After his fellowship ended, Fisher had a private practice on Long Island. In 1930, he became superintendent of International Hospital, a black-owned private hospital on Seventh Avenue in Harlem, but the hospital went bankrupt in October 1931.

Fisher died after unsuccessful abdominal surgery in 1934 at the age of 37.