Man Who Cried I Am

by John A. Williams

Knowing that he is dying of cancer, a young Negro writer struggles to come to terms with life

Genres: Fiction, Classics, African American, Race, Novels, Politics, Literature

420 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1967

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

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

Please read this. Now.



__________
[gr=score -- 222::22]

I'm way out on a limb with this claim [I'm not] but it's not the truth of my claim I'm interested in but the fact that there remains the task for other readers to verify it or reject it, and I'm out on a limb because of the relevant books I've read only one, Invisible Man, BUT. If there is a triumvirate of Black American Writers--Ellison, Wright, Baldwin--and despite my having only read one single piece of evidence I of course concede they are each pinnacles of American Fiction and mea culpa etc--and the authority with which I make my claim is as flimsy as flimsy gets [shouldn't Toni Morrison count among the trinity? I'd say she's the Next Generation but who's counting] but however we count and howsoever sturdily we build I'd submit as Number Four to the Trilogy John A. Williams' The Man Who Cried I Am (and not just for the Descartes joke). No one's heard of him or this as attested by the gr=community Reviews. I was privileged to be introduced to him by Fred Karl's magnificent American Fictions 1940-1980: A Comprehensive History and Critical Evaluation (and nudged to finally tolle lege by gr=SuperStar Richard). Fred Karl also introduced me to William Melvin Kelley's A Different Drummer [gr=scrore 341::61] which also I've not read (yet) but have read his Wakean Dunfords Travels Everywheres [gr=score 9::2] ;; and I've been hearing recently some rumblings that perhaps WMK oughter be the Fourth of the Triveers. And I'd be happy with that too because the more volumes we can pack into a Trilogy the better that's my opinion.

I'm not finished with the novel just yet. But the above is what I want to say no matter what may or may not 'happen' in the final several dozen pages.

Also and since we're already here doing all this research and conjecturing ; here's a list of roughly speaking post-1965 african american writers possibly experimentale that I simply stole from elsewhere on goodreads and the contents of which are not necessarily by me personally vetted but that's not important because what we are talking about is research and possibly the excavation of a BURIAL. ::
Henry Dumas
Toni Cade Bambara
Lawerence Neal
John Edgar Wideman
Ishmael Reed [naturally]
Clarence Major
Walter Mosley
Percival Everett
William Demby
Let me know what you discover.




* And as this kind of thing always gets relegated to an asterix'd footnote let me observe that two single female names above were mentioned. Let me add one for your curiosity's sake :: Carlene Hatcher Polite. Go get her book and let me know.

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had never even heard of John A. Williams' The Man Who Cried I Am before I began putting together my reading lists for my comps and I have no idea why. It's an amazing novel and one that should have more recognition.

The novel is cinematic in its scope and in its easy fades from one time period, one setting, one mindset to another. The framing narrative follows Max Reddick, an African American novelist and journalist, on one final trip to Amsterdam. He is dying of cancer and makes this last trip to see his estranged wife once more and see his friend Harry's mistress, for she has something important to give him from Harry, who has recently died. On his trip to Amsterdam, he reflects upon who has been and who he has become. His memories take the reader from the 1940s to the present of 1964, as Max's life includes literary parties, newspaper reporting, affair after affair after affair, working with the president [modelled on John F. Kennedy], working in Africa, and living in Paris and Amsterdam with other African American expatriates.

The novel takes on the literary world and its treatment of minority authors (tokenism), relations within minority groups (jealousy), interracial relationships (whether merely sexual or long-term, committed relationships), the place of minorities in politics and the workplace, the chaotic and confusing events of the 1960s, illness and death. Williams provides fictionalized representations of Richard Wright, James Baldwin, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, thus situating his novel in a very real context while also allowing himself leeway to make larger statements about these figures and their import without being tied to mere facts.

Much of the novel is a realistic portrayal of the culture in which Max's life takes place, from the political to the personal, from the business world to the sexual encounters that occur behind the scenes. This culture becomes more and more central to the story as the novel develops. At first it is mostly backdrop, an element of Max's personal life and not much more, but as the novel builds to a fantastic and utterly believable (and thus completely terrifying) conclusion, the political and social culture comes to the forefront and forces Max to make hard choices about who he is and who he wants to be at the end of his life.

Williams both argues for the necessity of force or at least a show of force, taking a position like Malcolm X's in saying that the oppressed should be willing to create change "by any means necessary," as he simultaneously illustrates the dangers of such an approach and the naiveté of those who believe that uniting black people behind such a banner would be easy or that it would effect any real change without first destroying the population. For Max and other leaders, to speak up is to endanger the lives of every African American in the U.S.; to say nothing, however, does no different. The question is no more and no less, in this case, than how one will choose to die: quickly and violently or slowly and painfully. By showing this paradox surrounding the race issue in mid-20th century America, Williams shows just how complex the issue of whether to use violent and nonviolent techniques of resistance is. It is not a question of violence or nonviolence; it is a question of power. As Bernard Zutkin, a Jewish editor, says to Max, "We survived by knowing exactly where power seemed to be every second of the day. If you're black you know that every white man thinks he has power over you and ergo, he has, until you kick his tail for him" (316). Individual survival is no longer an option for Max or Minister Q or any number of other black people, but their individual actions and sacrifices may make a broader survival possible. That is the only hope that Williams can leave us with at the end of this novel and even that is tenuous.

[El · Rating 5 out of 5]

Max Reddick is a journalist in the sixties, trying to overcome racial stereotypes as well as personal (and physical) obstacles to become a respected writer. Beginning in Amsterdam the story moves location and time throughout the story, from New York to Leiden to Amsterdam to Africa. His relationships with other black intellectuals and expatriates are based on real characters of history (Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Richard Wright), and his sexual relationships with women (both black and white) are discussed openly and honestly in regards to how Max is treated by his peers. Williams here covers the Civil Rights Movement, Marxism, race, cancer, the Cubans, the Russians, etc. as Max details his experiences throughout, therefore revealing his identity as a human.

I think it's unfair to compare this to James Baldwin, another black writer whom I find absolutely spectacular; this is the first Williams I have read and I understand it to be the one that made readers first take real notice of Williams - there are similarities between Baldwin and Williams, but Williams actually takes it just a step further than Baldwin would. There is even more history and animosity, Williams is even more directly and painfully honest. For that reason, for the way Williams seemed to put his entire body into writing this book, I believe I have found one of the most powerful books.

[Robert Wechsler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This should be much more of an African-American classic than it is. I’d never even heard of it. The writing is excellent, simple but always appropriate, never pat. Although it is a novel about a novelist, and his relationship with another novelist, it never feels overly literary or self-referential. Except for the end, with the uncovering of a huge international conspiracy, it almost never strikes a wrong note. It’s a novel I could definitely come back to. It’s too bad that, it appears, Williams never duplicated the quality of this novel.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one disturbed me, and I think that's the point. Not disturbed in a psychological way. Williams just keeps me always on my guard. At first, I worried about the constant fluxuations in tone, time, and scope. But in the end, I'm fascinated with how perfectly these shifts match the growth and struggles of Max Reddick. The ending is still bothering me; mostly because I'm still trying to force it into a clean, traditional narrative, and it won't fit. Provocative. I know that's a bit cliche, but I never use that word to describe books. Until now, of course. I'll think on it...

[Banderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read this so many times I can't put the date above. It is fascinating how the author weaves the current events of his time with the lives of his writing contemporaries, like Richard Wright and Baldwin. He draws on clearly autobiographical experiences as a young black writer in the '40s, 50's and 60's, but so much of the feeling is like it happened yesterday.

[Donna Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Man Who Cried I Am was originally published during the turmoil of the late 1960’s, in the throes of the Civil Rights and antiwar movements, and following the assassinations of President Kennedy, his brother Bobby, Martin Luther King Junior, and Malcolm X. Now we find ourselves in the midst of a long-overdue second civil rights movement, and this title is published again. We can read it digitally thanks to Open Road Integrated Media. I was invited to read it by them and the fine people at Net Galley. I read it free in exchange for an honest review. It is available for purchase now.

The story is a fictionalized account of the life of writer Richard Wright, one of the giants within African-American literature. I am ashamed to say that although I did pick up a copy of both Native Son and Black Boy, his two most famous books, they were still perched on my to-read pile when this invitation rolled in. I found myself perusing this meaty material without knowing anything about Wright himself, apart from his legendary stature and his occupation. I wanted to be able to give my readers a strong critical analysis of this novel, but I have really struggled with it. I found myself having to do a Wiki search in order to figure out whether Max Reddick or Harry Ames was supposed to be Wright. It’s embarrassing. I will read it over again and try to publish something more useful than this review in the future, but I promised to publish my thoughts on the book no later than today—a week following its release—and so I’m going to tell you what I can.

As literary fiction, it’s strong. Ames, who is Wright, as it turns out, and Reddick, who is James Baldwin fictionalized, go on an Odyssey all their own, leaving the USA and its myriad racial issues behind for Europe. A number of other historical luminaries are recognizable in its pages by different names, in addition to those called by their real names, such as Dewy and Truman, and philosopher Camus. The time period spans from post-World War II to the Civil Rights movement.

So many social issues are embraced here that I found myself making far more notes and highlighting more quotes than I can use. The debate unfolds as to how the Communist Party USA treats artists, as opposed to workers, and even touches briefly on the assassination of Trotsky at the hands of a Stalinist agent. Discrimination against African-American (then referred to as Negro) soldiers in the Buffaloes is part of Reddick’s inner narrative. Black Pride had not yet had its day, and Black men often coveted relationships with Caucasian women, partly (as Malcolm X pointed out) from self-hatred, partly as a social status symbol, and occasionally for the practical material benefits of marrying into, or becoming aligned with, a woman that had access to money. But this was also a double-edged sword, because the women’s movement hadn’t occurred yet either, and women were supposed to stay home and have babies while their men went off to work.

The whole thing is very complicated.

In this time prior to the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision that made abortion legal for American women, an unwanted pregnancy is dispatched by a doctor who is supposed to be quite good and risk free, but of course, the procedure is not legal, and there are no emergency facilities available. One of the characters loses the woman he loves when she bleeds to death after a back-alley abortion. This is not intended to be the primary focus of the book, but it’s huge to me, and so it stayed with me.

Be aware that there are scores of ugly racist terms, used for the purpose of highlighting racism, as well as sexist terms and references to gay men as the f-word. All references are either there because of the time period in which the story is set or for the purpose of defining the struggle of the Black man in America, but readers have a right to know and to brace themselves. There are descriptions of the atrocities visited upon European Jews during the war, as well as references to their struggle in the USA, primarily New York City; again, there are some ugly terms used.

Should you read this title? Not at the beach. This excellent novel is for the serious student of African-American history and for the history student focused on social justice. It’s more than worth your while, and I will re-read it myself after I have read Wright’s work. Just understand that there are many, many historical references that will make you reach for Google. The story was written during a time when the average reader had most of these things—from clothing styles such as zoot suits and pegged pants, to offhand references to the cigarette jingles that once punctuated our radio and television broadcasts as frequently as Coke and Pepsi do now, to slang terms whose use is either gone or worse, changed to mean something else. For example, if someone is high, they haven’t been using street drugs; they are drunk. None of these things is explained to the reader. We must have them stored in our memories; search for the meanings of unfamiliar references; or attempt to understand the text without knowing them.

I consider this literature to be accessible only to those that read at college level.

Highly recommended for those that take African-American literature and history seriously, and whose reading ability is well above average.

[Larry Carr · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had heard of Man Who Cried I Am by John Williams, but it took 55 years and an ebook bargain offer, with notation of an introduction by Walter Mosley to get me off the schneid. Thank you Walter Mosley! In the afterword to this edition the author noted: “published on October 20, 1967, was well-reviewed coast to coast, and a year later came out in the first of several paperback editions, with an inside cover quote from New York mayor John V. Lindsay, which the hardcover publishers were reluctant to use:
“If this book is to remain fiction, it must be read.”

This book was/is a cry of despair and of lost humanity, and the need to be recognized on one own merits. It is a disturbing book, moreover because it still remains true. I will note below some observations Mosley makes in his introduction, passages from the book, and perhaps a few comments of my own.

Mosley: “ The first section of the book burrows in the gut like the cancer afflicting Reddick. It turns over a fertile soil in which he is destined to sow his final seed. This beginning is an ode to Death, a delirium of a bitter man’s last days. There’s no sugar coating, no Good Negro. This is a story about a man facing a monumental enemy—his own mortality in a world that conspires against him.” …. “can imagine that many a moderate reader would have felt the fever of paranoia upon reading this book in the late sixties. But today even the most conservative American might be ready to consider the thriller-like conspiracy that Max uncovers at the end.” … “Fate, I finally found myself believing, conspired to make Max’s greatness. He lived in interesting times and navigated through them. He lived to the fullest even in the last moments of his life. Who but a Homeric hero could make such a claim?”
And in summation: “ We become aware of the possibility for corruption under the veil of lies placed upon us by the maneuverings prompted by madness and greed. The indictment was true in the year it was published, it is true today, and a thousand years from now, when America has another name and is peopled by technologically enhanced mutants that combine the attributes from a hundred species, it will still be a document extolling the best and worst characteristics of humanity.”

From the book … Holland: “ The men were so average. He quickly dismissed them. The girls were something else again, big-legged and big-buttocked. (Very much like African women, Max thought.) They pedaled past, their chins held high, their knees promising for fractions of seconds only, a flash of white above the stockingtops and then, the view imminent, the knees rushed up and obscured all view. Once in a while Max would see a girl pedaling saucily, not caring if her knees blocked out the sights above or not. Max would think: Go, baby!” … “ He had seen her pass many, many times. Before. Before, when he had sat deep inside the cafe watching, and would only call to her when she was almost out of sight. “Lost your cool then, man,” he now whispered to himself. “You ba-lew it!” He always thought of the canals when he thought of her. Now they would be reflecting with aching clarity the marvelous painter’s sky. The barges and boats would be on the way in, and soon the ducks and swans would be tucking their necks in to sleep. He had to sleep soon, too; it might prolong his life. A few days more.” … “ (And all? What was all? A memory. Nineteen years old.) He supposed he did love her, transposed, a bit bleached out, in a clinical way, the way you’d discuss it in an analyst’s office. Anal, he thought, list. Shit list. Man, am I on that! But he did want to tell her he was sorry; tell her why it hadn’t worked. He was glad he was still on his feet and able to move about. If he had stayed in the hospital in New York, it would have happened, his dying, and somehow she would have learned about it. No. Stand on two feet and tell her you had her mixed up with someone who happened nineteen years ago.” … “ And she stopped. Her mouth sprang open. Her dark blue eyes went bulging. With the deepest part of the eye he saw her start impulsively toward him, but she caught herself and stood waving as a leaf in some slight, capricious wind. He stopped too, out of pain and uncertainty; he had blown his lines again. But when he stopped she moved forward. On she came, the bright face ready to brighten even more, the stride now full, heel-rapping, confident. He stood waving, surprised at his own lack of cool, aghast at the waterfall of love he had thought dammed.”

Love. In black and white, should not matter but does, but no surprise he/she moved forward with it.

Max past prime: “ He supposed he was always tired. Bored, that’s what brought it on, bored with all of it, the predictability of wars, the behavior of statesmen, cabdrivers, most men, most women. Bored because writing books had become, finally, unexciting; bored because The Magazine too, and all the people connected with it, did their work and lived by formulae. He was bored with New Deals and Square Deals and New Frontiers and Great Societies; suspicious of the future, untrusting of the past. He was sure of one thing: that he was; that he existed. The pain in his ass told him so.”

Writers. And with Harry a kindred connection and explanation of their condition:
“There are in this business,” he said, with a heavy air, “people who would like you to be serious, even angry, twenty-four hours a day. If you can’t, then you’re a renegade Negro, and they won’t have too much to do with you. This world is very, very greasy, and it’s going to slide a long way. They’ve been so used to putting it on a certain set of skids that they are quite sure that any way they set it—and at least they’re thinking now about where the world should be set—it’s the right way. Man, they want you to whip them, whip the shit out of them. But then, will you have energy for anything else? Look, I don’t know you very well at all, but we’re colored, we write, we talk that streevus mone shit and—thing is—thing is, somewhere in this business we got something together besides being colored and being writers.” …. “ you, me, Warren and the others—have that function. I’ll tell you why. “In our society which is white—we are intruders they say—there has got to be something inherently horrible about having the sicknesses and weaknesses of that society described by a person who is a victim of them; for if he, the victim, is capable of describing what they have believed nonexistent, then they, the members of the majority, must choose between living the truth, which can be pretty grim, and the lie, which isn’t much better. But at least they will then have the choice. “It must be pretty awful for a white man to learn that one of the things wrong with this society is that it is not based on dollars directly or alone, but dollars denied men who are black so dollars can go into the pockets of men who are white. It must make white men ponder a kind of weakness that will make them deny work to black men so that work can be done by men who are white. How it must anger them to know finally that we know they deny women who are white to black men, while they have taken black women at will for generations.”
To sum it up: “ Harry looked at Max and shrugged.
“Well, the tweeby blee and a ree whee kee …”
Max back at Harry: “Jooby on the sloob pood dooby...”

On history: “You know, man, the fat was already in the fire, the horror commonplace and no lesson was learned. Naturally with nine million dead (the Jews rarely talked about the three million gypsies and political prisoners) everyone jumped screaming and weeping to their feet. Nine million, n-i-n-e million. Ah, the world got what it deserved. The lessons had been written on the board in big letters thousands of years ago and repeated several times every century since. Question: How many men can I kill if I dig out the Suez Canal? Question: How many men can I kill if I build myself a Great Pyramid? Question: How many men, women and children can we kill if we retake the Holy Land from the heathens? (We’ll call it a Crusade.) Question: How many men, women and children can we kill if we establish a slave trade between Africa and the New World? Question: How many men can we kill to make the world safe for democracy? Question: How many men can we kill to make the world safe for communism? Answer: Hundreds, thousands, millions, billions. And then, we’ll start all over again.”

WWII, and black soldiering: “Max gathered Barnes and the new squad around him. He took them away from the other troops; he had made up his mind that he was not talking Army anymore; he was going to talk colored. He stood in the center of them.”… “All right. You know my name. It’s Reddick and I’m the boss. I’m going to tell you like it is.” His eyes went over the faces. Young. Hopeful. Afraid. In the background he watched the other squads preparing to move out. “It’s like this: the Buffaloes got a bad name. And the white cracker soldiers don’t help it none. A lot of our officers been court-martialed. We lost a lot of guys because we weren’t trained properly. Now, I’ve got to tell you that that’s because we’re colored. No other reason. I want to put it to you straight because if you go out there thinking Uncle Sammy has prepared you as well as he has the white soldiers, you’re in trouble; and if you think he cares for you as much as for the white soldiers, you’re not in trouble anymore. You’re just dead. “Now it don’t matter at all to me how you got here, drafted or volunteered. I’m just trying to tell you how you’re going to have to act when the shit sprays the fan. First of all, the Germans think they’ve got an easy day if they see a black face. I don’t know where that started, but you know the white folks back home and maybe even on your flank feel the same goddamn way. You want to live, you shoot first and ask questions later. All you got to tell me is that you saw a white face. Don’t tell me what that white face is wearing, because I don’t want to know. You get hit and I find you didn’t do what I told you, tough titty. You do like I said and I’ll break my balls for you.” Max shifted his feet. “Now, in case you think that’s a little harsh, I might add that we’ve also lost a few boys in what they’d call little teeny race riots.” Max snapped, “If each of you guys looks out for number one—and that means looking out for your buddy—we’ll make it all right. What you got to remember is that nobody here likes us; nobody.”

Later as Journalist: “no secret that Berg desperately wanted Max to go to Korea and see Harry Truman’s integrated Armed Forces take the field against the North Koreans. Berg had broached the idea in a roundabout way and Max had beat a rapid retreat.” … “ Berg had sense enough to know that any Negro really aware of his position in American society in the year 1950, if given the chance to refuse to go to a real fighting war and still remain economically and socially solvent, would refuse. Berg should know that, Max thought, Berg the cynical liberal (his own words). Besides, when the white Americans called out, “Gook!” it sounded awfully like nigger. Max had heard about that kind of war in the Pacific; he wanted none of it. But there was no reason why Korea would not turn into that kind of racial war. Instead of the British and French kicking the Orientals in the ass, now it was steady Uncle Sam. Ultimately there would be China to face. Racial wars called something else.”

Still schooling them: “trying to tell you what’s good for the country. What histories do you read, Gus? Tell me about the history of the American armed forces, and I can show you how important Negroes were to those forces; tell me about the history of American economics and I can show you where Negroes made up the bulk of those economies by being poor or left out of them altogether; tell me about the history of religion in America, and I can show you where, as long as there have been Negroes in this hemisphere, religion has been an absolute lie; tell me about the history of American politics, and I can show you where American politics would be vastly different today if Negroes had had a real voice in them.” … “niggers” are embattled everywhere, ain’t they, baby? Asian “niggers,” South American “niggers” … But let a revolt occur in East Germany and watch the newsprint fly! Let another Hungarian revolution take place and see the white nations of the world open their doors to take in refugees—Freedom Fighters, yeah! Who takes in blacks, Pakistanis, Vietnamese, Koreans, Chinese, who?”

And still true 55 years later.

I’ll leave it there, no spoilers, and remember just because it’s called paranoia doesn’t mean they ain’t out to get you. A great black writer, an important book, still relevant…Go for it por favor.

[Peggy · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's a big divide between black and white America and whites don't know it. White people can guess, become educated, become lovers and friends with black Americans, but they (we) will never experience what it's like to be wished dead at every turn. As Williams puts it, "I have seen their faces; they are faces out of nightmares--so ordinary--so ordinary that you can't believe the brains behind them capable of genocide."

Narrator Max Reddick is an eminent novelist and journalist, a World War 2 vet, a sometime ex-pat, a consummate professional who does what's needed and more to get the story--rides in a General's jeep in the Congo; joins the guerillas on a skirmish in Angola; sharpens his pencils and applies seat to chair to get the words out. His novels thud into the night with little impact. Only one black author is allowed the spotlight at a time. We see Max work, talk with friends, travel, meet women, fall in love or conduct satisfactory transactional one-night stands. He's sick, wounded, vulnerable, carries physical pain with him everywhere, every decade. It's fascinating to revisit the fifties and sixties with him, with its swirl of pan-Africanism, African independence, Brown v. the Board of Education, the Kennedy administration. Max meets the elite of leftist literary, civil rights, and black political circles.

It's compelling, fascinating. The novel takes place on a single day when Max attends his old writer friend Harry Ace's funeral in France; Max's ex-wife in Amsterdam; and Harry's lover, also in the Netherlands. Everything else occurs in flashback, but you hardly notice it, so seamless are Williams's transitions. All along, the reader feels the weight of race, the burden of it, through Max's mind, something that his white wife doesn't always get, and the fact that she doesn't notice is a huge gulf between them.

Sociologically, historically, culturally rich, some of the characters are understood to be based on real people such as James Baldwin, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X. If this were all the novel was, it would be enough. But when you reach the end, you realize that there's more here than you realized. As Walter Mosley writes in his introduction, there is "another level to the book, another novel buried inside the vignettes and subplots. Another story was unfolding while the bittersweet pain of Max and his friends took the limelight." It "cannot be contained...[in] a single reading."

I don't know if I will reread it. Time gets shorter for me every day, as it does for us all. As a human being, I'm taking a voyage on a river. Books drift past and there are so many to pull out and read. The book was hard for me to get my hands on--the copy I'm reading is from the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Memorial Library. But it's going on my private list of books worth a second read.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most fascinating books of 1967

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

How is John A. Williams not as famous as his contemporaries James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison? This book is a masterpiece and more relevant today than ever. The Man Who Cried I Am opens in the 1940s and was published only twenty years after World War II. Williams was clearly affected by the Holocaust and the disturbing parallels between the experiences of European Jews and Black Americans (his 1999 novel Clifford's Blues is set in Dachau). Writing during the height of the Cold War, Williams forces us to acknowledge that it is fascism, never Communism, that is the true threat, because its tenets are woven into the very fabric of America itself. The Man Who Cried I Am is a difficult read and absolutely terrifying in the truths its speaks. Holy shit, just read this.

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic novel that demands close attention. Complex characters, a plot that could be considered epic (or at least cinematic). A great comment on America, on writing, and on race. Williams has a number of good novels that are sadly overlooked. (He's also got a couple of stinkers, but who doesn't?) Check out !Click Song for more on black writers and the struggle to publish; This is My Country Too! for a fantastic look at american in the 60s; and Sissie, for a novel about family dynamics that plays with POV and voice.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those books you should read. I had a hard time with it. I felt some scenes were underdeveloped, the shifts in time (especially early on) made me want to give up several times, and there were preachy passages. But, if you want to know African American lit, this is a formative book in the cannon after WWII. So, it was worth reading, but it took me forever. I wouldn't say that I liked it, but I know a lot of people who do. Maybe this is one of those books you either love or hate.

[Alice Rickless · Rating 3 out of 5]

For such a well written book I was disappointed by the ending - maybe that was the point?

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was very engaged in the main storyline of this book about a male author suffering painful colon cancer who was visiting his former wife and other acquaintances in Europe following the death of a fellow writer and friend. His trip was laced with flashbacks and memories while he was resting, dozing, sleeping, usually after taking pain medication (morphine). Through these stories, I learned about his history, and the impetus for this trip. Another plot involved a white supremacist conspiracy that ended up killing him. Conspiracies don't interest me, BUT reading this one as "white supremacy" with or without an actual organized motivation did add to the book.

This novel deals with the struggle and dreams of black American men moving through the US's systemic racism. It is heartbreaking to see the way they work to engage and improve the system while being constantly beat down - even, especially when they achieve some level of success. Like many, I am surprised that I didn't hear more buzz about this book when discussing classic or important black American literature. It belongs in that conversation.

The writing is good and easy to read, and this book shows racism for its system, not its individual acts. It's an important and challenging opportunity for those willing to face it.

[Janne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know how I had missed this book when it first came out: it is a wonderful description of the experience of a black man, an intelligent, ambitious black man trying to live his life in the US of the 50s and 60s. Williams is able to make me, an aging white female from Brazil, feel the angst and the rage of the narrator. Things were changing in this country, but not fast enough for the ones living at the time. The characters portrayed in the book supposedly are based on real life black writers and musicians, and apparently even Malcolm X makes an appearance, although I couldn't really recognize him. Marvelously written, compelling book.

[Dean Landsman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, first published n 1967, tells of classified government plans for dealing with racial unrest. A remarkable story, dealt with by the brilliant author John A. Williams as a work of fiction, foreshadows much of the "contingency" planning of the government to deal with issues as they might arise. Now, as we see the doings of various intelligence agencies snooping, prying, eavesdropping, and gathering intel of all sorts, contingency plans and government planning for numerous "what if" scenarios becomes an even more hair-raising concept.

[Alisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unforgettable . Would definitely reread. Started off slow and misleading because we meet Max as an old(er) man, in foreign land, with an estranged foreign white wife. But then it eventually starts going back to his past and we see the turmoil that he’s gone through as a Black american that brings him to the present surrender of life/caution we meet him at.

The revelation at the end was so terrifyingly written, I had to stop reading it (I was reading late at night). It started to seem too real.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars, though I'm still digesting it.

I think it's obviously an important novel, and is a no-holds-barred account of what it was like to be a black man and writer from the 40s-60s. There's a lot of anger (which is understandable), and the attitudes toward women were not super progressive, which I guess is also in keeping with the times. Ultimately, even though it was a bit of a bummer to get through, and slow in some parts, I'm glad I read it.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone needs to read John A. Williams, a writer I'm sad to have only discovered this month. There's so much to talk about here and the issues of race addressed in the novel, particularly within publishing and literature are ones we're still struggling with today.

[f · Rating 5 out of 5]

Complicated characters, surprising plot. The hatred of blacks by whites and of blacks by other blacks was so accurately beautifully portrayed.

The plot seemed so realistic that for a second I wondered if it was a historical fiction. Granted it wasn’t, but I would not be surprised if the US government had planned similar things; and that speaks volumes.

The writing was intriguing, depicting the thoughts of complicated characters extremely well. Never felt bored, although was a bit anxious and impatient as the plot is not exposed until the very end; and the author dangling hints of it in front of the readers throughout the book.

[writelikeafelix · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where to start with this monolith of a novel? „It is an existentialist novel“, writes Merve Emre in the introduction to the current Fitzcarraldo reprint, „a social realist novel, a romance, a work of barely disguised reportage, and, in the end, a shockingly paranoid fiction.“ In his foreword, Ishmael Reed describes it as „part roman á clef and travelogue, part whodunit and political thriller, and part horror movie and dystopian flick“. This should give you an idea as to how many facets there are within the roughly 500 pages of Williams' 1967 novel, which, in my mind at least, owes as much to Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison as it predates and informs the works of Don DeLillo or Thomas Pynchon. A wild and perfect mix, indeed!

The Fitzcarraldo blurb focuses on the political thriller part of the plot: Max Reddick, our main character – 'novelist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter' – receives one last letter from his old colleague/friend Harry Ames (aka Richard Wright) after the latter's untimely death, which, as Max learns from the letter, is part of a secret government plot to silence Black intellectuals and, in last consequence, rid America of its Black population once and for all. The circumstances of this revelation, Max's trip to the Netherlands after Harry's funeral in Paris, where he first meets up with his ex-wife Margrit and then with Harry's old lover Michelle to pick up the letter, form the frame of the plot and are only fully developed in the last fifty pages of the novel. They are not, I would argue, the heart of the book, but rather a dystopian climax to an otherwise strictly social-realist novel, a climax that is there to underline certain points Williams makes about the life of Black writers during the other 400+ pages of the novel.

At the heart of The Man Who Cried I Am, then, stands Max Reddick himself, his rise-and-fall as a writer, a lover and a husband, a colleague and a friend, and last but not least as a Black man. We first meet him at the brink of World War II, at 24, having just published his first novel, during his introduction into the NY literary scene, where he also meets – and immediately bonds with - the 'father' of Black literature at the time, Harry Ames. The War interferes, Max is sent to Italy and takes part in some of the most gruesome ground battles of the war with his all-black cavalry – which, as he later learns, is also part of the same US plot to diminish its black population. A sudden illness saves him from probable death, and he returns home to continue his troublesome path to becoming a renowned writer … which in the end he succeeds in, but not without the sacrifices peculiar to all Black writers at the time. Over the course of twenty years, we watch Max publish a string of ever-more successful novels, we watch him hunger through harsh winters and revel in various, steamy hookups. There's a brief marriage ending in a tragedy that Max will take decades to forget, rooted in discrimation as it is. There's his journalistic career, too, which finally takes off shortly after this tragedy, making Max one of the first Black media men in downtown New York, both thriving from and nurturing his career as a novelist, finally leading to a stint as presidential writer for a thinly-disguised JFK, and a senior-editor post in Lagos, in the midst of the African struggle for independence. Throughout all of this, Max never loses touch with his colleague Harry, who has moved to Paris as a result of being married to a white woman. The two of them share a friendship tinged in rivalry, or a rivalry tinged in friendship, and in the end they also share other things: the experience of interracial marriage and the involvement in a secret government plot to silence both of them, by all means necessary.

As Merve Emre notes in her introduction to the novel, the paranoid ending to the novel sticks out in an otherwise very realistic novel, while at the same time seeming like a perfectly logical consequence to Max's experiences throughout the book. As a black writer, he holds a more-than-precarious position in the racially-charged post-war USA. To most of the white population – including the better parts of the book industry – he shouldn't exist at all, is either shunned or downright sabotaged, like his friend Harry who is first awarded a famous book prize and then denied it after the jury learns of his interracial marriage. To the black population, too, Max is an outcast trying to fit into white society, delusional at best, always at the risk of becoming a mere token. While his career eventually thrives due to the help of some Jewish publishers who feel they share a common enemy with him, all of Max's relationships – including his loving marriage to the Dutch woman Margrit – eventually tumble and fall because of his insistence on being a Black author, and staying critical and dangerous in his writing, not becoming a token after all. The Man Who Cried I Am, then, is more than the story of Black writers in the 50s and 60s – it is a novel about the Black experience per sé, of Black women and men trying to carve out the American promise of freedom in a society still deeming them a descendant of slaves, even after Jim Crow, after desegregation and the March on Washington. As Max cries towards the end of the novel: "All you ever want to do is remind me I am black. But, goddamn it, I also am.“


This was my first novel by John A. Williams, who died in 2015 having written about 20 novels. I first stumbled across him in a LitHub article about 'notoriously underrated writers', among them much-better-known authors like James Salter, Carson McCullers, or Percival Everett. The Man Who Cried I Am, as far as I can see, is the only novel of his still in print, or back in print thanks to Fitzcarraldo, who republished it in April as part of their Classics edition. A swift Instagram search warrants no comments under Fitzcarraldo's publication post, and no book review to be found on the platform.

Then again, another big theme of the novel is the way in which the white publishing industry will only allow one black author to be famous and heralded at a time; accordingly, the novel is full of envious and backstabbing authors, among them a barely-disguised James Baldwin ('Marion Dawes'), who makes a name criticizing Harry Ames/Richard Wright only to crawl back to him asking for food as the new kid on the block in Paris. 60 years later, and it seems Baldwin has trumped Williams as the one generally-acknowledged Black author from the 60s/70s-generation; it seems that, between Giovannis Room and Another Country, there is just no more room for other novels about the Black transnational experience of that generation. Case in point: myself, who has read every single Baldwin book before touching this close-to-perfect novel, which might not outshine Another Country, but is far superior to the thematically somewhat similar Tell Me How Long The Train's Been Gone and Just Above My Head. With some deduction points for countless mysogonistic undertones (Baldwin's work isn't devoid of those, either...), The Man Who Cried I Am nevertheless shines as an exciting and fresh advance of the Black protest novel, most importantly due to the incorporation of postmodern elements into the Baldwin'esque social-realist plot: mid-paragraph jumps between decades and localities, eery dream sequences, rectal-cancer ruminations, weird-ass mid-chapter conversations with a Black Uber-Ich?!, ... right up until the final, uncanny CIA-conspiracy/ paranoid chapter worthy of DeLillo's Libra.

A strongly, strongly recommended 9.5/10.

[Archie Osmond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stone cold masterpiece.

The timeline of the book is extremely puzzling at times, but you quickly pick up the deliberately different way in which Williams writes about each period of Max Reddick’s (the protagonists) life.

The book is about the experiences of African Americans from the late-ish 20s up until the late-ish 60s, both at home and in Europe - the difference between them in this period was really interesting, and not something I really knew about. Although the characters of people like James Baldwin, Malcolm X, MLK and JFK are highly fictionalised (they’re clearly these people, they just have different names), it has a very historical feel to it. So much so that the fictional government plan - named King Alfred, which sets out the process of deporting African Americans in the event of a race war - that Reddick uncovers in the climax of the story was often cited as fact by activists in the aftermath of the book being published.

Aside from the insightful and cutting edge social commentary throughout the book, I thought Williams’ ability to switch between different plot threads and in an out of dialogue and inner monologues was a thing of beauty. A thing of beauty I tell you!

One of the best books I’ve read for a while, and one that I’m genuinely shocked isn’t more widely known. Will be reading more by our John in the future for sure.

[Ernie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Man Who Cried I Am
by John A. Williams

First published in 1967 in America and republished now, this passionate, complex, novel reminded me of Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath in its devastating portrait of American society from a Black American’s point of view from the 1940’s when the protagonist Max Reddick fought in Italy, through the unshared economic growth of the 50’s, to the desegregation crises of the 60’s and the race riots that culminated in Little Rock and Watts in 1965. Max is a writer, trying to scrape a living at a minor Black paper in Harlem, New York city but Williams begins his novel with Max, even after having six novels published, still unrecognised and perhaps about to emerge from under the shadow of Harry Ames, the father of Black writers who has spent most of his mature life, living in exile in Paris after having a major international writer’s award taken from him. It’s as if only one token Black writer at a time could be successful. Max also has spent much time out of the USA and returns to Europe for the funeral of Harry in Amsterdam in 1964. The narrative even extends to Africa where Max covers the newly free colonies in Ghana and Nigeria, in contrast with the lack of freedom for Blacks in the USA.

On one level I read this novel as a bildungsroman of Max’s growth to maturity, both as a character and a writer and otherwise as a social and political history of Black Americans, not without its satirical aspects, yet also as a spy mystery thriller that races towards a rather sensational denouement. It is cinematic in structure and the flashbacks are long and detailed with convincing and sometimes frank dialog.

In that period of McCarthyism, the struggle to integrate against violent white supremacists, lynching, the cold war, the space race and the Cuban crises, the period of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and the assassination of President Kennedy, Williams, like James Baldwin could see that, if Black Americans could not be given their equal places in society, it would be ‘the fire next time’. Williams does not shirk from this, nor does he spare Black characters from severe criticism. Paul Durrell is a preacher created by the media as an acceptably middle class leader of Black protests but also a womaniser and probably financially corrupt. In the jazz era in Harlem young Max, like his zoot-suited contemporaries, strives to grab as much ‘pussy’ as he can and become ‘the cockmaster of cockmasters’. His name, Reddick, red dick, reinforces that idea.

Williams writes that Harry Ames, like so many successful Blacks, marries a white woman as if to prove that what white folks fear about Blacks taking their women was true. Max marries a Black woman and even when Williams has her die early in the marriage, he shows how her death showed the fate of those who cannot afford the cost of hospital surgery. Max is told by Harry, ‘they deny women who are white to black, meanwhile they have taken black women at will for generations’. Ironically, when Max does marry a white woman in Amsterdam, the authorial narrator comments; ‘The boyhood that came with being a Negro* was over.’.. ‘Many black men, whatever they said to the contrary, had not yet jettisoned what the white manhood said about them and white women.’ Both Magrit and Michelle, a French woman friend, are developed characters that add perspective to the character of Max. Michelle wonders, ‘What do you do to writers in America?’ Unlike Harry, who became the American existentialist in the Paris of Sartre, Williams has Max take Magrit to New York

At his most extreme, Williams creates Max as an up and coming journalist succeeding through a series of long interviews on death row with a young, Black, Harvard masters graduate, Moses Boatwright, after his conviction for a murder that involved cannibalism. ‘I am an abomination. Ugly black…’ Boatwright explains in a posthumous letter to Max that he ate the genitals and heart in order to show white folks his conviction that all that life was allowed for him was ‘clawing the heart and balls out of the other guy’. These chapters are like a mini version of In Cold Blood, decades before Truman Capote. The cannibal is a gross symbol of the fearful images that white folks created to keep segregation intact. Reinforcing that was the decision of the committee organising the centenary of the Civil War to keep commemoration events segregated. Max learns about this, when, at the height of his success, he agrees to become a speech writer for Kennedy who uses not a word so Max resigns, deciding that desegregation had lost priority to the space race and the Cuban crises.

With his success, demonstrated by his appointment with news magazine, Pace (Newsweek or Time) Williams shows Max learning that ‘He had made it, then thought, and that made him less Negro: that made him no longer one of them…when they think that you have made it, they’re either afraid of you or put you down for being a Tom.’ Max is a flawed character, a sexual exploiter of women but nevertheless a rare and memorable example of one created by an equally flawed society. That Williams remained an obscure writer, reinforced my opinion. I am grateful for this republication by Fitzcarraldo Editions, London 2024, my electronic copy coming from Kobo. There are two substantial introductions which I advise you to leave until you have finished the novel then I found answers to my guesses about which writers and political characters were given pseudonyms by Williams. Moreover, these two commentators provided me with more to think about the importance of this book and its title began to echo the battles still to be won by Blacks in the USA.
* Williams uses ‘Negro’ and ‘nigger in his text and I have chosen to use Black or African American. I thank the publishers for their decision which in my opinion assisted the power and impact of the narrative.

[Donald Quist · Rating 3 out of 5]

A greatly under-appreciated piece of U.S. Geopolitical Fiction. Its publication in 1967, months after the reprint of Cane, makes this book one of the driving narratives of the civil rights movement and black power movement. Williams’s King Alfred Plan puts this book in conversation with Ishmael Reed’s Wallflower Order & Knights of Templar in Mumbo Jumbo.

[Vincent Stoessel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I need to reread this. I read this book during a period of my life when I was obsessed with the lives of African American expats living abroad during the 60s. As an added bonus, many parts take place in Amsterdam, a city I love.

[Ona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard not to compare him to James Baldwin...and this book is a great complement to those of the Master.

[Ronan]

John A. Williams' The Man Who Cried I Am is a text gargantuan in scope: covering the Second World War, JFK, the Korean War, race-relations in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, and the lived experiences of a black man in these years.

Max Reddick, the work's focus, is a journalist and writer whose close friend and fellow author, Harry Ames, has recently passed. He finds himself in Leiden, the Netherlands, meeting Margrit, an ex-beau of his, triggering the memories of twenty or some years ago to rush back to him. I Am recounts Max's life throughout wars, relationships, deaths, elections, protests, and amendments.

He suffers. Max suffers - this is his defining lot throughout. He lives on ham hock and peas, as he struggles to earn, as he confronts the reality of fellow black authors around him - namely Harry Ames - becoming successful and well-regarded, while he remains a relative unknown.

In the twenty or so years the text spans Max does not change, nor, truly, does the world around him; he just occupies different spaces, or is old enough to see how little he can gain from a world bent on his marginalisation.

Sidelined as he is, Max attempts entrances to the centre of these worlds, but finds, as with a speechwriter role he gains, all the doors facsimiles, and all the ears turned to listen apparently blocked, and tuned into something else entirely - something contrary to what he, Max is saying. Something they'd rather listen to, as it is something already in agreement with their views.

The Man Who Cried I Am is a detailed and intricate exploration of the lived experience of a black man trapped in a schism of liberal arts organisation insistent on "doing the right thing" and the primacy of racial hatred, where people battle amongst and within themselves and others for equality they are unsure of truly wanting.

Fitzcarraldo Editions publish John A. Williams' The Man Who Cried I Am on April 24 2024, fifty-seven years after its initial release, as part of their Classics collection.

Thanks to Fitzcarraldo Editions for an Advance Review Copy of this.

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t understand why this ambitious and complex novel about racism in the United States isn’t better known, as it’s a brilliant roman a clef which incorporates so many themes which are just as pertinent today as they were in 1967 when it was first published. It seems to have been overshadowed by better known novels by James Baldwin, Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison, but in my opinion it as certainly as good as those, if, indeed, it doesn’t surpass them. It’s a heartfelt and passionate cry against racism, and an introspective portrait of a Black man searching for identity and meaning in his life in a society that discriminates against him in so many ways. Max Reddick is a writer, journalist and activist dying of cancer, who reflects back on his life as it comes to an end. Through his retrospective narrative the novel offers the reader a sweeping panorama of the Black experience in 20th century America and chronicles the tension within the Black community itself. The book weaves real-life figures, such as JFK, Malcolm X and Jams Baldwin, with fictional ones in a non-linear narrative that jumps about in time and place. The reader needs to concentrate, and benefits from doing some background research. Part of the reading pleasure is trying to match up the fictional characters with their real-life equivalents. Reddick himself is possibly based on Richard Wright. He’s a flawed but compelling character and I soon became invested in his plight. The toll the racial struggle takes on all the characters is sympathetically portrayed and feels very real. As Reddick’s physical condition deteriorates, it seems to reflect the deterioration in the success of the civil rights movement as a whole. Broad in scope, touching on racism, segregation, conspiracy theory, post-colonial history with a dash of the thriller in the mix, it’s a multi-layered and thought-provoking book which I very much enjoyed. An angry book and sadly still a very relevant one.

[Carmine Spagnoletti · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fierce, poetic novel that merges personal struggle with political reality.

What stood out to me the most about The Man Who Cried I Am was its incredible writing style and how seamlessly it wove real historical events and figures into fiction. John A. Williams brings the civil rights era to life—not through slogans or sentimentality, but through complexity, rage, intelligence, and honesty. The historical realism hit hard, and it resonated deeply, especially in light of what’s still happening in the world today.

Max Reddick is not a character I personally related to in experience, but I understood him. His journey—through America, Europe, exile, and back—reveals a layered portrait of a man grappling with identity, injustice, and how far one should go in service of truth. His story becomes a lens through which to explore larger themes of race, betrayal, power, existence, and what it means to belong in a world that denies your place in it.

I especially appreciated the blend of fiction with actual political figures and conspiracies (like the King Alfred Plan), which felt disturbingly plausible given the documented history of government surveillance and sabotage of Black movements. That mix gave the book a kind of prophetic edge.

One of the most memorable parts for me was Max’s relationship with his wife Marguerite in Holland—how, outside the United States, they were allowed to be. To exist without the constant pressure of judgement or racial expectations. That entire section said so much about the cost of exile and the clarity it can offer.

The pacing was excellent—tight, sharp, and rhythmic. Williams writes with both urgency and elegance. I’d absolutely recommend this to readers who are interested in Black history, political fiction, and stories that speak to structural inequality and human resilience. It’s not just a powerful novel—it’s an important one.