Eight Men

by Richard Wright, Paul Gilroy (Introduction)

"Wright's unrelenting bleak landscape was not merely that of the Deep South, or of Chicago, but that of the world, of the human heart," said James Baldwin, and here, in these powerful stories, Richard Wright takes readers into this landscape one again. Eight Men presents eight stories of black men living at violent odds with the white world around them. As they do in his classic novels, the themes here reflect Wright's views on racism and his fascination with what he called "the struggle of the individual in America."

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, African American, Classics, American, Literature, African American Literature

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

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 5 out of 5]

More explosive tales exposing the moral rot of segregated America pre-1960s. Contains the first version of ‘The Man Who Lived Underground’, later unearthed and published in its triumphant original novel form. The (somewhat) lighter side of Wright is here too with the all-dialogue tale of a man who cross-dresses as his wife to work as a domestic in a white household. Essential dispatches from a shamefaced nation.

[Octavia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could give this 10 stars! 🌟

Reading Novels by Richard Wright always brings a 'Sense of Learning' to me. It's inconceivable to read his work. His literature is more like words to Pursue to Study during life. As a Reader, one can only have so much Respect for this Author's fearless stance of views with writing about Injustice. His Mesmerizing storytelling stories of the South are sometimes authored with humor along with his profound depiction of racism as well.

Decades ago, Richard Wright's autobiography, "Black Boy", became such a Wonder to me. And, will continually be a Cherished literary piece; reminiscing back to three familiar black men he worked with in an animal lab. The three men were: Bill, Brand, and Cooke who are the same men in the short story, "The Man Who Went To Chicago." I must say, this Author certainly left the Best story for the Ending.
This story just gave me chills like no other. It took me a considerable amount of time to end the final story because it just tugged at my Heart and Soul. Wright's description of self-hatred and racial hatred written so many years ago will leave you to ponder, "How much has really changed since then?" 😢

His Writings are so Sincere and True ❣️ .

My Other Favorites are:

▪️ The Man Who Lived Underground
▪️ The Black Good Man
▪️ Man Of All Work ❣️
▪️ Man, God Ain't Like That... ✨
▪️ The Man Who Went To Chicago ✨

Richard Wright's Classics will Forever exhibit Prestigious Honor.

[Alicia (PrettyBrownEyeReader) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first Richard Wright read. I am so glad it was recommended to me. Each short story tells a distinctive story with the common thread being black men.

[Hannamari · Rating 3 out of 5]

First I was appalled by the inevitable-seeming destruction of the protagonists in the end of each short story. Eventually I learned to like the eight cynical and violent stories told through the eyes of a black man trying to survive in the segregated world of white men. I did find the stories a little black and white (in more ways than one) but also eye opening and though provoking. Worth the read definitely.

[Anneke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would give this 5 stars for “The Man Who Lived Underground” alone, but some of the short stories in this collection didn’t grab me as much, even though each one was shocking and compelling in its own right. Excellent collection overall and I think Wright is able to deliver deeply existential social critique in an engaging, approachable way. His conclusions are often overwhelmingly bleak and violent but more than that I notice and appreciate the very broad range of emotion, narrative style and plot found within the collection.

Now I really want to go ahead and read the extended version of “The Man Who Lived Underground.” I think this is the best short story I’ve ever read, and it even made me cry. I find that I’m still thinking about it now, months since I read it. Really powerful examination of guilt, solitude, individuality, and the struggle to articulate oneself in a world where your appearance, and racial identity especially, is itself an unavoidable, often damning, statement. The way he plays with linguistic conventions is especially inventive in this one and I was reminded of an art history essay I read on “chromophobia” and the way that racism has been embedded into our aesthetic preferences. Here, Wright reverses many of our assumptions about the world’s moral judgements as expressed through color and light. He imbues fear into the sun, which becomes terrifying in its brilliance. The sun dies and is cruel, and light is fleeting, while darkness promises a certain safety in its anonymity. A truly unforgettable essay that is well worth the read.

Quotes:

“He came to where the earth hole ended and he heard the noise of the current and time lived again for him, measuring the moments by the wash of water”

“He was the statement, and since it was all so clear to him, surely he would be able to make it clear to others…His whole being was full of what he wanted to say to them, but he could not say it…He opened his lips to answer and no words came. He had forgotten. But what did it matter if he had. It was not important”

“He felt that he could not explain himself to them…the images stood out sharply in his mind, but he could not make them have the meaning for others that they had for him”

[Roger DeBlanck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard Wright is a revelation of 20th century American literature with two timeless epics, his novel Native Son and his memoir Black Boy. Often overlooked are his stories, but the pieces compiled in his collection Eight Men are just as riveting and impactful as his longer classic works.

In each of the stories, Wright takes on the inhumanity of racism and the blistering legacy of slavery and how their lethal degradation haunts the world, particularly in America where the force of white supremacy continues to flaunt its bloody fist. Even as Wright confronts the ugliness of bigotry, he exposes its horrors with moments of humor that lend awareness to the absurdity of racial stigmatizing.

Among a volume where each of the eight stories make their message clear, two were most memorable. “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” examines the carelessness of unintended violence in the life of a young boy wanting to embrace his masculinity by owning a gun. The volume’s best piece perhaps is “Big Black Good Man.” It builds suspense about an encounter between a white man and a Black man that leaves you shaking your head at the shame of it all while it’s hard not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation.

If you want to know America’s past, Richard Wright’s books provide a door into the darkness where a mirror waits for us to confront what we are in hopes of seeing a future where progress will shine brighter.

[Sentimental Surrealist · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three more hours left in 2014! What's there to do, what's there to do, but write another book review?

Often derided, and in many ways I get why: this is far and away the weakest Wright book I've read so far. That remarkable progression from horror to resistance in the face of racism found in Uncle Tom's Children is missing, and in some ways, it feels like Wright's spinning on his wheels: in terms of using a flood as the jumping-off point for his story, "Long Black Song" beats "The Man Who Saw the Flood" senseless, and "Man, God Ain't Like That" repeats the dialog-only trick (twelve years before Gaddis! Complete with narrative entropy!) in the great "Man of All Work," which is in turn a twist on Native Son but removed enough from its obvious source to keep me reading. As for the others? Well, "Big Black Good Man" is funny, which is weird for Wright, I don't even remember "The Man Who Went to Chicago," the first half of "The Man Who Lived Underground" is dull as hell but then it gets cooking, "The Man Who Killed a Shadow" feels like a draft or outline or just something that needs a little more sculpting, and "The Man Who Was Almost a Man" is almost great, but doesn't quite get there. It's also probably the best story here. Draw your own conclusions.

The verdict? Decnet, but mainly just for the curious.

[Rebecca Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

These stories were dark and disturbing. There was a little too much violence and darkness for my personal taste, but the stories themselves are full of tension that kept me quickly flipping pages.

[Suzanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stories in different styles of writing. Each forces you to stop and consider a different point of view - that view being from a black man. It explores racism, and it can be harsh.

[ShaiVaughn Crawley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! Excited for this to come out in April. It is very vivid, very descriptive & easy to follow for the most part. Sometimes, it can be *too* descriptive—at times I thought that overly descriptive parts were a precedent for a larger, more meaningful purpose. Most times, this wasn’t the case. I love the fact that there was no explicit city named in the book. I take it as whatever happened to Fred Daniels could happen to any Black person, anywhere in the country. This book reads just like a Richard Wright novel, and I am very glad to have read it. I see so much of Bigger Thomas (Native Son) in Fred Daniels.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't understand why this collection isn't respected more than it is. Some of the stories might not be as good as some of the others, but some are downright classics. These are masterful stories by a mature, memorable talent. Excellent reading.

[Mike Lowry · Rating 4 out of 5]

nice

[Toby Wraye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poignant understanding of the human condition overall and specifically the position and circumstances of Afro-American men and woman.

[Juliana Maximiano Torres Carneiro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a remarkable book exploring all sorts of stereotypes and experiences behind the veil.

[Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

First-rate. Out of the eight tales, six are stone-cold hits and only a couple are less compelling. The opener in my volume, if I recall, was "The Man Who Was Almost A Man," about a teenaged Black youth (working on a farm in the south) longing for a gun. When he gets it, a mistake leads to his lighting out for the territories, as if he is the progenitor to all the men who come next. It's followed by a "The Man Who Lived Underground," feels like a comic dry run for the larger work by Ellison that followed a decade later. The narrator, falsely accused of murder, escapes to the sewers and stumbles into one piece of good luck after another, only to be overcome by a different type of complicity toward the story's end. In the comic "Man Of All Work," an out of work Chicago husband desperate to make his family's final house payments answers an ad for a female cook, when his wife is laid up with their second child. It's a terrific story that lets the husband in on the different, more complicated forms of oppression faced by Black women in the workforce. There are a couple of stories told in dialogue ("Man, God Ain't Like That" and "The Man Who Saw The Flood") neither of which seem quite as impactful as the other narratives. Altogether more powerful, and possibly the best story in the collection, is "The Man Who Killed A Shadow"—a brilliant short version of something like Bigger Thomas's story, where the reader is let into a sharp understanding of the context behind a murder, a context the white world can't fully understand. The story would pair brilliantly with Du Bois's discussion of double consciousness, which the story illustrates perfectly. It's as strong as anything Wright ever put on paper. "Big Black Good Man" transports an interrogation of racial prejudice abroad, where a Scandinavian hotel operator confronts a jovial, friendly Black giant of a man, who forces him face to face with his unprompted resentments. The concluding tale is apparently something of a biographical fiction based on Wright's own work experience in Chicago during the depression. It is both moving and comic by turns, a deft observation of one man's painful coming to terms with his own understanding of the race question as well as the lack of understanding of same by both Blacks and whites in the story. Highly recommended.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of stories about 8 different men, mostly beaten down by hateful attitudes of whites against Blacks, is odd and fascinating, and also very sad. "The Man Who Was Almost a Man," has been anthologized often, about a 17 year old young man who wants a gun to show he's an adult--and ends up killing a mule by mistake. He runs away. The longest is "The Man Who Lived Underground," a short version of an unpublished novel by the same name that finally saw print in 2021. "The Big Black Good Man" is sort of funny, about an older white man in Stockholm who is clerk for a hotel for sailors. He fears a giant Black man, especially when the Black man puts his hands around the Swede's neck. Turns out he was measuring his neck for some shirts, to thank him for the prostitute he introduced him to. "The Man Who Saw the Flood" is of a family whose house and possessions are destroyed by a flood and the resignation of the Black man to incur even more debt just to go on living. "Man of All Work" is mostly dialogue, like a screenplay. Carl, a Black man is close to owning his own house, but he's out of a job and his wife has just given birth. He dresses as a maid, Lucy, to get a job and his boss tries to rape her/him. When the boss's wife shoots Lucy, assuming that "she"led her husband on, he's given $200 to forget about it--and is able to pay off the house. "Man, God Ain't Like That" is about John, a white artist who goes to Africa with his wife and hits Babu, an African, with his car. They hire him as a servant because he sings hymns like a Christian, although he also prays to the bones of his father. Later they bring him to Paris and Babu cuts off John's head. John had posed for religious paintings and Babu, thinking he's God/Christ, assumes that he'll be able to resurrect. This is the weakest and weirdest story of the bunch. "The Man Who Killed a Shadow" is about a Black janitor who kills a librarian who keeps staring at him. The sentiment of the character, being almost totally divorced from the action he's committing, reminds me of Native Son. The final story, "The Man Who Went to Chicago," is based on Wright's life and his work and wonderings in Chicago during the Depression. Wright is a good writer, dealing with the hideousness of racial hatred in America.

[Dre J · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've often known about Richard Wright from his disagreements with Zora Neale Hurston. I've read passages, but never anything full, but these were very interesting. Like with any short story collection there will be some favorites over others, but Richard Wright does a great job at keeping the theme throughout these. the way in which black men see themselves and how we are seen by non black. There is a story that intrigued me about a man that is trying to feed his family and keep the family home. The only jobs available are usually given to women (maids, cooks, etc.) and he goes out dressed as a woman and gets the job. I just find that to be an interesting theme to be written about back then and it still comes up with black male identity today (Tyler Perry, Martin, etc.) There is also a story where white folk are referred to as shadows. They don't feel like real people and they end up consuming him due to him killing one. The big black good man story resonated with me because of how I think I have been viewed in "white spaces" before. As a big black man people often find you scary or intimidating or have the wrong idea about you and you are seeing from a white mans perspective everything bad about this guy until he finally sees who and what the guy is about a a "good man". Richard Wright definitely had his ear and eye on the pulse of race in America and knew how to express it well through writing. He is also a Mississippi boy so that's always a winner.

[Alexus Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read "The Man Who Was Almost a Man" and "The Man Who Killed a Shadow" for my Southern Literature class in college. While I didn't read the entire book, I hope to revisit it one day and read it in it's entirety. As for now, there is just little time and lots to do.

"The Man Who Was Almost a Man" was intriguing. It discusses black masculinity and uses non-standard English to make the story more authentic. The non-standard English usage is different than other Southern Lit writers like Faulker, whose characters are marginalized at best. While this story is set in the past, it discusses topics that are still real in our modern world today. Guns, sexuality, and the patriarchal society are just a few to name.

"The Man Who Killed a Shadow" is also another complex story in the book. Wright is drawing attention to the way the protagonist in the short story views White Americans. The scenes between Maybelle and Saul are interesting because they display rather different ideas than the typical gender roles myth. I envision Saul acting more like Maybelle and Maybelle acting more like Saul. This story is a wonderful story and all Americans should read.

[Brittany W1114 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Richard Wright is a profound Black author who writes about what being a Black male is like in an overtly racist society (as seen in Native Son and this text). This text begins with the narrator being falsely accused of murdering a white couple and being beaten into submission by the cops that unjustly arrest him. He escapes police custody, only to find the only safe place to escape to is through a manhole cover and down into the underground bowels of the city.

Wright perfectly captures the horror, the indignation, the fear that the narrator feels as he is falsely accused of murder. I felt the same suspense that the narrator must have felt as he navigated being arrested, escaping, and disappearing underground.

This text deals with themes of race, violence in the form of police brutality, civilized versus savagery, the individual versus society, and visibility (both hypervisibility and invisibility).

A downfall of this book would be the lack of clear description; it was difficult for me to envision the underground setting, especially when the narrator was discovering different rooms. Overall, this lack of description made it difficult for me to stay engrossed in this text because I couldn’t visualize the text and therefore wasn’t as immersed as I could have been.

I would recommend this book to anyone who read and loved his Native Son and to anyone who is interested in the Black experience (and just how little it seems to have changed 70+ years later).

(Read on Net Galley)

[Juanita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review: Eight Men by Richard Wright. 07/22/2017

This is a Classic first published in 1940 about eight Africa American men. There are eight short stories that focus on Black men at violent odds with a white world. The author writes his point of view on racism in our society about Black men in different unusual situations and the stories involve their struggles in life.

Each story was selected on Black men involved cruelly with their surroundings and beaten down by society. Each person is one way or another misunderstood and misinterpreted by the society past and present. The insight is interpreted beautifully with confident, well-proper and honorable written even with occasionally emotional distressed and sorrow.

Eight Men is a collection of fairly sad stories that detail the overbearing conditions of Black men in the 1930’s. They were all great stories but four of them are impressive and will be memorable. The book was interesting and educational and is listed on school reading and discussion among the students.

[Chris Jaffe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read "The Man Who Was Almost a Man" my freshman year in college eons ago, and loved it. The teacher said it was part of a series of stories called "Eight Men" and I've always wanted to read it but never got around to it.

Now I have. And it was disappointing.

It has its moments. The lead stor - the one I read before - is great. The last two stories, "The Man Who Killed a Shadow" and an autobiographical account of his early years in Chicago, were both excellent. But in-between .... it just didn't register. There are two stories told entirely in dialogue and I didn't see why they were, and everything felt a bit forced and melodramatic. The story about the man living underground - I just had trouble with the logistics. How could he always see people if they couldn't see him? I dunno.

It does get a lot better in the end stories, which is why I'm not giving it two stars.

[Vorik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Der Zufall hatte mir diesen Kurzgeschichtenband in die Hände gespielt, und siehe da, das Lesen hat sich gelohnt. Richard Wright pendelt in seinen acht Kurzgeschichten immer wieder um das Thema Rassismus. Dabei beleuchtet er meist die Lebenssituation von Afroamerikanern in den 30er bis 50er Jahren des letzten Jahrhunderts in kleinen, kurzen Geschichten. Mal spannend, mal still, mal grotesk, mal schlicht, mal wortreich, mal autobiographisch – und meist richtig packend. Bei zwei der Geschichten gefriert einem fast das Blut, bei anderen weiß man nicht, ob man lachen oder weinen soll, so sehr wird man innerlich bei der Lektüre durchgeschüttelt – oder besser gesagt wachgerüttelt. Ein empfehlenswertes Büchlein.

[Matt Sautman · Rating 4 out of 5]

An anthology of short stories depicting Black men in different social situations, not every story matches the same caliber Wright reaches in his most iconic writings, yet these stories do flesh out distinctive points of view that may stick with readers long afterwords, such as the Man who Lives Underground, Wright's own version of the Invisible Man/Underground Man present in the work of Ellison and Dostoevsky respectively, and the Man of All Work, a man who crossdresses to become a house-keeper in order to find work.

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Extremely disappointing collection of mostly mediocre stories, including two (both written entirely in laughably bad dialogue) that were absolutely terrible. Only one or two of the stories moved me at all, and the final story (“The Man Who Went to Chicago”) isn’t even fiction, but a meandering personal essay. I admire Wright’s nonfiction (12 Million Black Voices and Black Boy are both very good), but this is further proof that he really wasn’t a fiction writer.

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The quality of the stories varied. Some were very gripping and well written, others I found a bit too much slapstick (Man of all work) or too elaborate (The man who lived underground).
In all stories though, Wright paints a vivid picture. I could clearly see all the characters going through their various struggles. And you really are a great writer when you come to sympathize with a brutal murderer in the space of just a few pages.

[Lumumba Mthembu · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would have given this book 1 star were it not for “Man of All Work”, a story that appears in the middle of the text. Until I reached it I had a torrid time deciphering Richard Wright’s allegories. I’m not overly literal but the level of abstraction present in the 1st half of Eight Men is such that I felt I was in a dream. “Man of All Work” provided a much needed, concrete narrative for me to anchor my enjoyment. So little abstraction does it contain that it reads like a screenplay. I wonder if anyone has actioned the rights

[Marcos · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wouldn’t say that Richard Wright is forgotten as one of the great American authors in history, but it seems he may be somewhat under appreciated. This collection of short stories isn’t considered one of his best, but I found it engrossing and diverse. Eight stories about 8 black men- all of whom are dealing with some form of racial inequality on various levels. Stand out stories for me were; The Man Who Lived Underground, Man of All Work and Man, God Ain’t Like That.

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The eight stories in the book are linked by the common theme of Black experience in white America. The stories as I perceived them range from fantasy to insanity to semi-autobiography. The final section added by the publisher provides a year by year chronology of Richard Wright's life and was illuminating and improved my understanding of Wright's writings.

[Eric Susak · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I had embraced the daily horror of anxiety, of tension, of eternal disquiet" (173).

"Our too-young and too-new America, lusty because it is lonely, aggressive because it is afraid, insists upon seeing the world in terms of good and bad, the holy and the evil, the high and the low, the white and the black; our America is frightened by fact, by history, by processes, by necessity" (180).

[Ferni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dos millones de años después, conseguí terminar el libro. Estoy contenta con él; es una visión nueva sobre un tema que sigo pensando es increíblemente complejo y con muchos aristas. Me alegra mucho habérmelo topado entre mis libros olvidados. Worth my time.