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Later Novels: Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone / If Beale Street Could Talk / Just Above My Head
Here for the first time in one volume are James Baldwin's revealing novels of the late 1960s and '70s: Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone, If Beale Street Could Talk, and Just Above My Head. In these ambitious and deeply reflective works Baldwin responds with searching intelligence and his signature passion—for music, for justice, for life—to the new realities of a rapidly changing cultural landscape, as the Civil Rights era gave way to the age of identity politics. Dramatizing the unequal treatment of African American men by the police and the justice system, depicting the black family with insight and sensitivity, and exploring the emotional depths and ambiguities of sexuality, these three novels show how Baldwin continues to speak to twenty-first century America. A companion volume collects Baldwin's three earlier novels.
1082 pages, Hardcover
First published September 29, 2015
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388 people want to read
About the author
James Baldwin
341 books17.2k followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Works of American writer James Arthur Baldwin, outspoken critic of racism, include Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), a novel, and Notes of a Native Son (1955), a collection of essays.
James Arthur Baldwin authored plays and poems in society.
He came as the eldest of nine children; his stepfather served as a minister. At 14 years of age in 1938, Baldwin preached at the small fireside Pentecostal church in Harlem. From religion in the early 1940s, he transferred his faith to literature with the still evident impassioned cadences of black churches. From 1948, Baldwin made his home primarily in the south of France but often returned to the United States of America to lecture or to teach.
In his Giovanni's Room, a white American expatriate must come to terms with his homosexuality. In 1957, he began spending half of each year in city of New York.
James Baldwin offered a vital literary voice during the era of civil rights activism in the 1950s and 1960s.
He first partially autobiographically accounted his youth. His influential Nobody Knows My Name and The Fire Next Time informed a large white audience. Another Country talks about gay sexual tensions among intellectuals of New York. Segments of the black nationalist community savaged his gay themes. Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panthers stated the Baldwin displayed an "agonizing, total hatred of blacks." People produced Blues for Mister Charlie , play of Baldwin, in 1964. Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, defended Baldwin.
Going to Meet the Man and Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone provided powerful descriptions. He as an openly gay man increasingly in condemned discrimination against lesbian persons.
From stomach cancer, Baldwin died in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France. People buried his body at the Ferncliff cemetery in Hartsdale near city of New York.
Works of American writer James Arthur Baldwin, outspoken critic of racism, include Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), a novel, and Notes of a Native Son (1955), a collection of essays.
James Arthur Baldwin authored plays and poems in society.
He came as the eldest of nine children; his stepfather served as a minister. At 14 years of age in 1938, Baldwin preached at the small fireside Pentecostal church in Harlem. From religion in the early 1940s, he transferred his faith to literature with the still evident impassioned cadences of black churches. From 1948, Baldwin made his home primarily in the south of France but often returned to the United States of America to lecture or to teach.
In his Giovanni's Room, a white American expatriate must come to terms with his homosexuality. In 1957, he began spending half of each year in city of New York.
James Baldwin offered a vital literary voice during the era of civil rights activism in the 1950s and 1960s.
He first partially autobiographically accounted his youth. His influential Nobody Knows My Name and The Fire Next Time informed a large white audience. Another Country talks about gay sexual tensions among intellectuals of New York. Segments of the black nationalist community savaged his gay themes. Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panthers stated the Baldwin displayed an "agonizing, total hatred of blacks." People produced Blues for Mister Charlie , play of Baldwin, in 1964. Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, defended Baldwin.
Going to Meet the Man and Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone provided powerful descriptions. He as an openly gay man increasingly in condemned discrimination against lesbian persons.
From stomach cancer, Baldwin died in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France. People buried his body at the Ferncliff cemetery in Hartsdale near city of New York.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 23, 2021
One of the things you can say about these later James Baldwin novels is that they pull you in and do not let go.
The first novel, "Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone" is the story of an actor who has a serious health issue. In part, it comes out of an attempt to adapt one of Baldwin's earlier works to the stage. It is a bit about life, about family and about relationships.
"If Beale Street Could Talk" is heartbreaking. It simply is. And honesty, it is illustration, among other things, of the long reach effects of racism in the police and society and how it effects generations.
"Just Above My Head" seems to be based in part what happened to Baldwin's brother's experience.
In fact, leaving aside Beale Street, the other two novels do seem to be slightly autobiographical in some sense. If you knw anything about Baldwin, in other words if you have read his non-fiction, then there are similarities, an overlapping of events.
The first novel, "Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone" is the story of an actor who has a serious health issue. In part, it comes out of an attempt to adapt one of Baldwin's earlier works to the stage. It is a bit about life, about family and about relationships.
"If Beale Street Could Talk" is heartbreaking. It simply is. And honesty, it is illustration, among other things, of the long reach effects of racism in the police and society and how it effects generations.
"Just Above My Head" seems to be based in part what happened to Baldwin's brother's experience.
In fact, leaving aside Beale Street, the other two novels do seem to be slightly autobiographical in some sense. If you knw anything about Baldwin, in other words if you have read his non-fiction, then there are similarities, an overlapping of events.
February 5, 2019
Note: This is the edition I read, but I only read one of the three novels included: If Beale Street Could Talk.
I’ve read Baldwin before (Go Tell It on the Mountain and Another Country) and thought the novels were good: thought-provoking, with memorable images, interesting characters, and excellent writing. But I loved If Beale Street Could Talk in a way that differed significantly from my reaction to the other two books. The beautiful language and characters grabbed me from the first page and never let go. The language is beautiful because it’s true: even when characters are cursing each other out, it’s real, and the love the characters feel for one another is real. The central characters are Tish, our 19-year-old narrator, and her fiancé Fonny, an aspiring sculptor who has been arrested on a false charge of rape.
While his situation is terrible (he's in jail indefinitely until his trial can be set, and at the mercy of a racist white cop who made up the story), it was the love and kindness shown by various characters that struck me hardest. Not only does Tish's family (her mother, father and older sister) love and support her, but they regard Fonny as one of their own. In addition, Fonny's friends and even strangers go out of their way to help the young couple. In one scene, Tish's mother has gone to Puerto Rico to speak with the woman accusing Fonny of the crime. She hires a young taxi driver and asks him to wait outside a nightclub where she is going to seek the woman's boyfriend. "She has no way of realizing ... that the entire militia would have trouble driving Jaime away. ... This lady, he knows, is in deep trouble." And he decides, having known her for 15 minutes, to help her any way he can -- and follows thru on that promise. It's the beauty of such moments that drives the story and makes it a hopeful one, even while it deals with racism, poverty, injustice and hatred.
I’ve read Baldwin before (Go Tell It on the Mountain and Another Country) and thought the novels were good: thought-provoking, with memorable images, interesting characters, and excellent writing. But I loved If Beale Street Could Talk in a way that differed significantly from my reaction to the other two books. The beautiful language and characters grabbed me from the first page and never let go. The language is beautiful because it’s true: even when characters are cursing each other out, it’s real, and the love the characters feel for one another is real. The central characters are Tish, our 19-year-old narrator, and her fiancé Fonny, an aspiring sculptor who has been arrested on a false charge of rape.
While his situation is terrible (he's in jail indefinitely until his trial can be set, and at the mercy of a racist white cop who made up the story), it was the love and kindness shown by various characters that struck me hardest. Not only does Tish's family (her mother, father and older sister) love and support her, but they regard Fonny as one of their own. In addition, Fonny's friends and even strangers go out of their way to help the young couple. In one scene, Tish's mother has gone to Puerto Rico to speak with the woman accusing Fonny of the crime. She hires a young taxi driver and asks him to wait outside a nightclub where she is going to seek the woman's boyfriend. "She has no way of realizing ... that the entire militia would have trouble driving Jaime away. ... This lady, he knows, is in deep trouble." And he decides, having known her for 15 minutes, to help her any way he can -- and follows thru on that promise. It's the beauty of such moments that drives the story and makes it a hopeful one, even while it deals with racism, poverty, injustice and hatred.
February 21, 2019
James Baldwin is an astounding writer. He deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Faulkner, Hemingway, et al. -- in short, among the best writers America has ever produced. He is dazzlingly intelligent, perceptive, thoughtful, provocative, bitter, tender, and always astute. That being said, I simply could not engage with his final, sprawling novel, Just Above My Head, no matter how many times I tried. It just seems off, somehow: unfocused and uninhabited compared to his other works. But make no mistake: the novels collected here are eminently worthy of inclusion in the greatest work to come out of America. I would probably rank his novels in the exact order in with they were published, with his earliest works being his greatest, but nearly everything by Baldwin is better than just about anything else out there. He's a major voice, being finally given his due by virtue of these sets from the Library of America.
July 30, 2021
I only read Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone. This book is over 1000 pages….I only had time for one of the novels.
This is a wonderful story of a bisexual actor who’s had a heart attack and is reflecting on his life.
It’s beautifully told but also reflects in that wonderful Baldwinesque way on racism, classism and other serious American societal issues.
I loved this book.
This is a wonderful story of a bisexual actor who’s had a heart attack and is reflecting on his life.
It’s beautifully told but also reflects in that wonderful Baldwinesque way on racism, classism and other serious American societal issues.
I loved this book.
January 2, 2019
This is for If Beale Street Could Talk.
Baldwin's only novel narrated by a woman, this is a love story about Tish and Fonny, two young people growing up in Harlem. Set in the 70s, as the promises of the Civil Rights Movement curdled, it is also the story of mass-incarceration, injustice, and the lives of working-class black communities--by turns optimistic and bleak. Finally, it is also about the love, sacrifice, and strength of a supportive family.
Baldwin's only novel narrated by a woman, this is a love story about Tish and Fonny, two young people growing up in Harlem. Set in the 70s, as the promises of the Civil Rights Movement curdled, it is also the story of mass-incarceration, injustice, and the lives of working-class black communities--by turns optimistic and bleak. Finally, it is also about the love, sacrifice, and strength of a supportive family.
March 30, 2020
The photo on the cover of this book is my favorite photo of James Baldwin.
Just Above My Head is my favorite of all his books.
Just Above My Head is my favorite of all his books.
July 19, 2020
oh my....what in the world the ending has me steaming!!! More please.
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December 11, 2015Fiction B181t 2015
April 13, 2016
james Baldwin is a stunning writer. His characters are real and feeling individuals, and his books are written with such passion and caring.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews