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Un intrus
Parue en 1959 aux États-Unis et en 1960 en France, adaptée au cinéma par Roger Corman, une analyse aussi virtuose que glaçante de la montée du populisme pour un Vintage noir choc, qui n'a malheureusement pas perdu une once de son actualité.
La petite ville sudiste de Caxton est déboussolée : l'arrêt de la Cour suprême vient de tomber ; désormais, les écoles publiques sont ouvertes aux enfants noirs. On s'étonne, on s'agace, et puis finalement on laisse faire.
Jusqu'à l'arrivée d'un intrus.
L'inconnu s'installe, intrigue, séduit, et petit à petit distille le poison : des Noirs ? Avec vos enfants chéris ? Vous n'y pensez pas !
Alors on s'invective, on rugit, on brandit le poing. Et puis montent la fureur, la haine, le sang...
La petite ville sudiste de Caxton est déboussolée : l'arrêt de la Cour suprême vient de tomber ; désormais, les écoles publiques sont ouvertes aux enfants noirs. On s'étonne, on s'agace, et puis finalement on laisse faire.
Jusqu'à l'arrivée d'un intrus.
L'inconnu s'installe, intrigue, séduit, et petit à petit distille le poison : des Noirs ? Avec vos enfants chéris ? Vous n'y pensez pas !
Alors on s'invective, on rugit, on brandit le poing. Et puis montent la fureur, la haine, le sang...
448 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
11 people are currently reading
212 people want to read
About the author
Charles Beaumont
211 books168 followersCharles Beaumont was born Charles Leroy Nutt in Chicago in 1929. He dropped out of high school in the tenth grade and worked at a number of jobs before selling his first story to Amazing Stories in 1950. His story “Black Country” (1954) was the first work of short fiction to appear in Playboy, and his classic tale “The Crooked Man” appeared in the same magazine the following year. Beaumont published numerous other short stories in the 1950s, both in mainstream periodicals like Playboy and Esquire and in science fiction and fantasy magazines.
His first story collection, The Hunger and Other Stories, was published in 1957 to immediate acclaim, and was followed by two further collections, Yonder (1958) and Night Ride and Other Journeys (1960). He also published two novels, Run from the Hunter (1957, pseudonymously, with John E. Tomerlin), and The Intruder (1959).
Beaumont is perhaps best remembered for his work in television, particularly his screenplays for The Twilight Zone, for which he wrote several of the most famous episodes. His other screenwriting credits include the scripts for films such as The Premature Burial (1962), Burn, Witch, Burn (1962), The Haunted Palace (1963), and The Masque of the Red Death (1964).
When Beaumont was 34, he began to suffer from ill health and developed a baffling and still unexplained condition that caused him to age at a greatly increased rate, such that at the time of his death at age 38 in 1967, he had the physical appearance of a 95-year-old man. Beaumont was survived by his wife Helen, two daughters, and two sons, one of whom, Christopher, is also a writer.
Beaumont’s work was much respected by his colleagues, and he counted Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, and Roger Corman among his friends and admirers.
-Valancourt Books
His first story collection, The Hunger and Other Stories, was published in 1957 to immediate acclaim, and was followed by two further collections, Yonder (1958) and Night Ride and Other Journeys (1960). He also published two novels, Run from the Hunter (1957, pseudonymously, with John E. Tomerlin), and The Intruder (1959).
Beaumont is perhaps best remembered for his work in television, particularly his screenplays for The Twilight Zone, for which he wrote several of the most famous episodes. His other screenwriting credits include the scripts for films such as The Premature Burial (1962), Burn, Witch, Burn (1962), The Haunted Palace (1963), and The Masque of the Red Death (1964).
When Beaumont was 34, he began to suffer from ill health and developed a baffling and still unexplained condition that caused him to age at a greatly increased rate, such that at the time of his death at age 38 in 1967, he had the physical appearance of a 95-year-old man. Beaumont was survived by his wife Helen, two daughters, and two sons, one of whom, Christopher, is also a writer.
Beaumont’s work was much respected by his colleagues, and he counted Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, and Roger Corman among his friends and admirers.
-Valancourt Books
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
February 5, 2015
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 20, 2022
The 1962 movie adaptation of The Intruder is a low-budget Roger Corman film about racism in a small southern town under the influence of a fast talking agitator. It seemed a pretty brave film to come out when it did during the height of the civil rights movement.
I hadn’t realized until recently that the film was based on a book by Charles Beaumont. Beaumont (like Corman) specialized in horror and fantastic stories, but this was quite a departure. The characters seem real and it is interesting that Beaumont saw these people so clearly in 1959! I could see this being written today with very few changes. It was a book ahead of its time and yet of its time. The only issue I might have with this book is that there does seem to be some filler. I listened to the audiobook which was over 10 hours in length. The Corman film is less than 90 minutes and trims out all the fat. However, this is a minor criticism and I would strongly recommend The Intruder.
I hadn’t realized until recently that the film was based on a book by Charles Beaumont. Beaumont (like Corman) specialized in horror and fantastic stories, but this was quite a departure. The characters seem real and it is interesting that Beaumont saw these people so clearly in 1959! I could see this being written today with very few changes. It was a book ahead of its time and yet of its time. The only issue I might have with this book is that there does seem to be some filler. I listened to the audiobook which was over 10 hours in length. The Corman film is less than 90 minutes and trims out all the fat. However, this is a minor criticism and I would strongly recommend The Intruder.
Want to read
February 5, 2015I’ve watched the movie by Corman (1962), based on the book.
Mr Cramer, the main character played by W. Shatner, arrives to Caxton with a sort of “mission”: to promote racial hate, it seems. He’s got all the seducing techniques you can imagine. He’s an agitator; a master instigator. He intrudes upon the psyche of the people and the life of this small place; soon, black people are in a dire situation; ads start saying: “nigger out!".
Mr Cramer, the main character played by W. Shatner, arrives to Caxton with a sort of “mission”: to promote racial hate, it seems. He’s got all the seducing techniques you can imagine. He’s an agitator; a master instigator. He intrudes upon the psyche of the people and the life of this small place; soon, black people are in a dire situation; ads start saying: “nigger out!".
April 1, 2016
Everyone should read this book. Its message is just as powerful today as it was in 1959 when it was first published. A fantastic read from a great but short lived writer who wrote many of the best original TWILIGHT ZONE shows.
December 15, 2021
Yes, it's the Twilight Zone writer Charles Beaumont, whose biography is just as interesting as his fiction. He made a big impact in such a short life. This story about an outside agitator stirring things up in a small Southern US town after Brown vs. Board of Ed was a little dated, but I added a star for the hopeful ending. "Nobody really wants what you're selling." When I see demagogues trying to divide our country, it helps to remember that nobody really wants what they're selling.
October 13, 2024
The Intruder, Charles Beaumont [Putnam, 1959].
From Charles Beaumont—an author of Weird Fiction, whose work was featured extensively on the original Twilight Zone—comes a topical novel about racial unrest in a small southern town.
The white citizens of Caxton, a small town in an unnamed state in the U.S. have resigned themselves—however reluctantly—to the impending court-ordered integration of the local high school. Until an outsider, a racist demagogue, inspires anti-Black racial animus and violence.
***
Charles Beaumont was a writer of horror and science fiction. A collection of his notable work, Perchance to Dream, is available from Penguin Classics. Beaumont died at age 38 of a rare disease that accelerated the aging process.
From Charles Beaumont—an author of Weird Fiction, whose work was featured extensively on the original Twilight Zone—comes a topical novel about racial unrest in a small southern town.
The white citizens of Caxton, a small town in an unnamed state in the U.S. have resigned themselves—however reluctantly—to the impending court-ordered integration of the local high school. Until an outsider, a racist demagogue, inspires anti-Black racial animus and violence.
***
Charles Beaumont was a writer of horror and science fiction. A collection of his notable work, Perchance to Dream, is available from Penguin Classics. Beaumont died at age 38 of a rare disease that accelerated the aging process.
June 30, 2017
Přečteno v českém jazyce: http://www.databazeknih.cz/knihy/vetr...
January 6, 2025
“Men we’re lounging against cars, smoking and moving their lips in silent conversation. Slow as the blue haze that drifted over the distant mountains, slow as the clouds, they moved, as if they were all waiting. And the air was hot and hushed. A little gray town, the color of gunpowder.”
“What is is that the people have to get out of their system? What is it that stays so close to the surface that a few words from a Yankee stranger can send it flooding out? Tonight, he thought, was the beginning. A war is coming to my town; and I don’t even know whose side I’m on.”
—————————————
A stranger comes to town and racial tensions come to a boil at the advent of desegregation.
A poignant & tense read that struck me as still sadly relevant 65 years after its original publication; the rhetoric stays eerily similar even if the faces change. I’m amazed that Beaumont wrote this when he did AND that it was published. Based on how the making of the movie went, I can only assume that he must have faced some pushback. A writer wildly ahead of his time. I’m glad Valancourt decided to make this so easily accessible.
“What is is that the people have to get out of their system? What is it that stays so close to the surface that a few words from a Yankee stranger can send it flooding out? Tonight, he thought, was the beginning. A war is coming to my town; and I don’t even know whose side I’m on.”
—————————————
A stranger comes to town and racial tensions come to a boil at the advent of desegregation.
A poignant & tense read that struck me as still sadly relevant 65 years after its original publication; the rhetoric stays eerily similar even if the faces change. I’m amazed that Beaumont wrote this when he did AND that it was published. Based on how the making of the movie went, I can only assume that he must have faced some pushback. A writer wildly ahead of his time. I’m glad Valancourt decided to make this so easily accessible.
April 2, 2024
I have recently been reading the mainstream novels of Philip K. Dick for the podcast. One of the realities of his career is that he tried and failed to write out of the SF genre. It was a constant source of pain and frustration that it didn’t appear to go anywhere in his lifetime; the novels only saw print after he died. In contrast, Walter Tevis (the author of The Man Who Fell to Earth) achieved that balance by publishing classics in genre and out (The Hustler/Queen’s Gambit). So, I became interested in mainstream novels by genre authors.
Hence this hardcore novel of realism and racism from the 50s by Charles Beaumont who is most often remembered for writing multiple classic episodes of the Twilight Zone. I had seen the movie The Intruder Directed by a young Roger Corman and starring William Shatner so I was not devoid of knowledge about the story. I remembered some details but mostly how good Shatner was.
In case you don’t know the sad story of Charles Beaumont. Born in Chicago in 1929 he sold his first story to Amazing Stories at 21 years after dropping out of high school. Eventually ending up in LA joining the ranks of a local community of writers that included Ray Bradbury, William F. Nolan, Richard Matheson, and George Clayton Johnson. Beaumont quickly sold stories to mainstream outlets like Playboy and Esquire. He wrote films such as The Premature Burial (1962), Burn, Witch, Burn (1962), The Haunted Palace (1963), and The Masque of the Red Death (1964). At the age of 38 he died looking more like an old man dying from many hard-to-identify health conditions.
In the middle of this period, the one novel published under his name was The Intruder. A novel called Run from the Hunter written under a pen name is considered by many to be the inspiration for The Fugitive a show he wrote for.
Published in 1959 just one year after the Supreme Court battles over the desegregation battle in Little Rock. The Intruder is written not with the hindsight of history but torn from the headlines feeling present. Also, the point of view of the novel makes it a very uncomfortable read at times. The first 80 pages present the racist attitudes naturally in a way that I don’t think a modern writer would do. There is no African American characters or perspectives until that point, and the lead character puts forward his attitudes without question. When you read the entire book and watch the faithful film adaptation you’ll see Beaumont was on the side of justice but it is a rough read at first. The casual racism of the characters is a shock now.
I had seen William F. Nolan the author speak at conferences about his experience being what he described as extra in the movie written by his late friend Charles Beaumont. (more on that later) Reading this book was an interesting experience for sure. I want to talk about both the novel and the film. Why they are important not just as an artifact of a pre-civil rights bill novel about racism but the counterpoint it provides to the much more famous To Kill a Mockingbird and why it was a very interesting read paired with Tananarive Due’s recent bestseller “The Reformatory.” (which I just reviewed)
The book has the same problem that To Kill a Mockingbird has in the sense that the story of southern racism is told through white characters almost exclusively That is where the contrast with The Reformatory a modern novel by a black author about the Jim Crow South is so different. (and frankly better)
The Intruder is the story of Adam Cramer who is based on John Kasper who was a Ku Klux Klan member and a segregationist who took a militant stand against racial integration during the civil rights movement. Kasper tried to create a third party to fight integration which he said was now supported by both parties. He ran in the 1964 Presidential election with J.B. Stoner but only got a few votes. So think about that his activism inspired this book and even after William Shatner played him in a frightening performance (one of his best) this asshole ran for President.
The movie is a faithful adaptation written by the novelist himself, so if I talk interchangeably about them that is why. The only changes are mostly due to budget concerns. Only four professional actors appear in the movie. Beaumont himself has to play the principal of the school who is a woman in the novel.
Adam Cramer is a slick handsome man who comes from LA manipulates this southern town and causes violence against the black community. Beaumont wants to show how this outsider can come to town and exploit the town’s bubbling racism into violence. A modern novel would have shown an ideal little town and the title character would make them do out-of-character things. The thing about this novel is the town in the Intruder is a bad place. An openly racist town even some of the characters who play icky white savior roles are bigots who are against integration, they just want to "follow the law."
Once we finally get black characters we are introduced to how segregated the town geographically speaking. Tom McDaniel is a newspaperman who has figures from both sides of the debate trying to manipulate him and his paper. Published a year before Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird which is a classic taught in school I wondered why the Newspaper man, not Adam Cramer was the focus of the story.
I thought a lot about why To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic, taught in schools and The Intruder is almost lost to time. Both novels have the white savior problem, Tom Mcdaniels almost dies for walking the white students to school, and the Principal risks his/her life to protect the black students. The thing is the Intruder doesn’t have heroes in the same way. Atticus Finch teaches us tolerance, whereas Beaumont’s novel is more of a warning. Not exactly a feel-good book.
The Intruder is not must read unless you are a serious Twilight Zone fans or the writers of the LA Sorcerers scene. It is a good novel and an important artifact of this scene and a time in history. It is a painful read at times but that is intentional.
Side note:
As someone who teaches and writes about the history of Science Fiction, I want to point out that the DIY shoestring nature of the film meant that Beaumont was drafting friends to join the film including William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson who play two of the worst racists in the town even burning down a black church. The most interesting thing about that is that the same team would write and publish the SF classic Logan’s Run six years later.
Hence this hardcore novel of realism and racism from the 50s by Charles Beaumont who is most often remembered for writing multiple classic episodes of the Twilight Zone. I had seen the movie The Intruder Directed by a young Roger Corman and starring William Shatner so I was not devoid of knowledge about the story. I remembered some details but mostly how good Shatner was.
In case you don’t know the sad story of Charles Beaumont. Born in Chicago in 1929 he sold his first story to Amazing Stories at 21 years after dropping out of high school. Eventually ending up in LA joining the ranks of a local community of writers that included Ray Bradbury, William F. Nolan, Richard Matheson, and George Clayton Johnson. Beaumont quickly sold stories to mainstream outlets like Playboy and Esquire. He wrote films such as The Premature Burial (1962), Burn, Witch, Burn (1962), The Haunted Palace (1963), and The Masque of the Red Death (1964). At the age of 38 he died looking more like an old man dying from many hard-to-identify health conditions.
In the middle of this period, the one novel published under his name was The Intruder. A novel called Run from the Hunter written under a pen name is considered by many to be the inspiration for The Fugitive a show he wrote for.
Published in 1959 just one year after the Supreme Court battles over the desegregation battle in Little Rock. The Intruder is written not with the hindsight of history but torn from the headlines feeling present. Also, the point of view of the novel makes it a very uncomfortable read at times. The first 80 pages present the racist attitudes naturally in a way that I don’t think a modern writer would do. There is no African American characters or perspectives until that point, and the lead character puts forward his attitudes without question. When you read the entire book and watch the faithful film adaptation you’ll see Beaumont was on the side of justice but it is a rough read at first. The casual racism of the characters is a shock now.
I had seen William F. Nolan the author speak at conferences about his experience being what he described as extra in the movie written by his late friend Charles Beaumont. (more on that later) Reading this book was an interesting experience for sure. I want to talk about both the novel and the film. Why they are important not just as an artifact of a pre-civil rights bill novel about racism but the counterpoint it provides to the much more famous To Kill a Mockingbird and why it was a very interesting read paired with Tananarive Due’s recent bestseller “The Reformatory.” (which I just reviewed)
The book has the same problem that To Kill a Mockingbird has in the sense that the story of southern racism is told through white characters almost exclusively That is where the contrast with The Reformatory a modern novel by a black author about the Jim Crow South is so different. (and frankly better)
The Intruder is the story of Adam Cramer who is based on John Kasper who was a Ku Klux Klan member and a segregationist who took a militant stand against racial integration during the civil rights movement. Kasper tried to create a third party to fight integration which he said was now supported by both parties. He ran in the 1964 Presidential election with J.B. Stoner but only got a few votes. So think about that his activism inspired this book and even after William Shatner played him in a frightening performance (one of his best) this asshole ran for President.
The movie is a faithful adaptation written by the novelist himself, so if I talk interchangeably about them that is why. The only changes are mostly due to budget concerns. Only four professional actors appear in the movie. Beaumont himself has to play the principal of the school who is a woman in the novel.
Adam Cramer is a slick handsome man who comes from LA manipulates this southern town and causes violence against the black community. Beaumont wants to show how this outsider can come to town and exploit the town’s bubbling racism into violence. A modern novel would have shown an ideal little town and the title character would make them do out-of-character things. The thing about this novel is the town in the Intruder is a bad place. An openly racist town even some of the characters who play icky white savior roles are bigots who are against integration, they just want to "follow the law."
Once we finally get black characters we are introduced to how segregated the town geographically speaking. Tom McDaniel is a newspaperman who has figures from both sides of the debate trying to manipulate him and his paper. Published a year before Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird which is a classic taught in school I wondered why the Newspaper man, not Adam Cramer was the focus of the story.
I thought a lot about why To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic, taught in schools and The Intruder is almost lost to time. Both novels have the white savior problem, Tom Mcdaniels almost dies for walking the white students to school, and the Principal risks his/her life to protect the black students. The thing is the Intruder doesn’t have heroes in the same way. Atticus Finch teaches us tolerance, whereas Beaumont’s novel is more of a warning. Not exactly a feel-good book.
The Intruder is not must read unless you are a serious Twilight Zone fans or the writers of the LA Sorcerers scene. It is a good novel and an important artifact of this scene and a time in history. It is a painful read at times but that is intentional.
Side note:
As someone who teaches and writes about the history of Science Fiction, I want to point out that the DIY shoestring nature of the film meant that Beaumont was drafting friends to join the film including William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson who play two of the worst racists in the town even burning down a black church. The most interesting thing about that is that the same team would write and publish the SF classic Logan’s Run six years later.
August 26, 2023
This novel, initially published in 1959, is based on the events recounted in the recently published (2023) nonfiction account of the desegregation efforts in Clinton, Tennessee, in 1956 called “A Most Tolerant Little Town: The Explosive Beginning of School Desegregation” by Rachel Louise Martin. I had recently read the latter and then, completely serendipitously only a few days later, picked up some of Charles Beaumont’s books and realized he had written an almost contemporaneous fictional account of the horrible events. I’m blown away by this book. I had to put it down a few times because the language and ideas spouted by the racists in the book are incredibly vile. However, it’s a well-written and riveting socially conscious thriller that’s very prescient of today’s political environment. The more things change, the more they stay the same, unfortunately. There will always be demagogues seeking power - the question is, where do you stand? Roger Corman made a movie based on the book starring a young William Shatner in the role of Adam Cramer (based on John Kasper in real life, a racist rabble rouser from the North who stirred up trouble in Tennessee - see the movie on YouTube). Anyway, this is a powerful and riveting story. Highly recommended but triggering. (Side note: Sadly, Beaumont, the author, passed away in 1967 at only 38 years old of a devastating condition that rapidly aged him to appear like a 95 year old and robbed him of his mind - until then, his output was prodigious and warmly received - he had written novels, stories, and screenplays, including episodes of “The Twilight Zone”, and he even appeared in the movie version of “The Intruder.”) Finally, the Valancourt Books edition contains an introduction by Roger Corman and reproduces the original jacket art so I highly recommend that version.
June 13, 2019
I will warn you, this book does contain the N-word A LOT. I picked this book up for two reasons.
1. A friend recommended it to me
2. As soon as I found out Charles Beaumont use to be a writer for the original TWILIGHT ZONE TV-series, I wanted to check out what he had done.
The story is a fictional work about the end of segregation in the south. The interaction between the characters is what makes the book as well as the twist ending. If I said any more, I would ruin the story for you.
1. A friend recommended it to me
2. As soon as I found out Charles Beaumont use to be a writer for the original TWILIGHT ZONE TV-series, I wanted to check out what he had done.
The story is a fictional work about the end of segregation in the south. The interaction between the characters is what makes the book as well as the twist ending. If I said any more, I would ruin the story for you.
July 12, 2025
DNF at 37%
one star for the possibility that all the rascist sexist antisemite white people in this story die is the worst ways but i can't listen through to the end to find out
the thought of listening to another 5+ hours of this audiobook made me physically ill
one star for the possibility that all the rascist sexist antisemite white people in this story die is the worst ways but i can't listen through to the end to find out
the thought of listening to another 5+ hours of this audiobook made me physically ill
February 2, 2020
Solid read about a piece of shit who starts trouble in a school district on the eve of racial integration. Told very much from a white perspective. 3 1/2 stars, if only Goodreads allowed for it.
March 23, 2020
I can see how this book can be interpreted in many different ways.
The way I see it is that the main racist perpetrator is the heart of the problem and not the innocent people who he tried to shift the blame onto.
This book is a glimpse into how structural racism works and why it was successful.
It is a hard read but it is an accurate description of the injustice and pain that so many people have had to live with for generations. And that injustice is still alive and cannot be ignored.
The way I see it is that the main racist perpetrator is the heart of the problem and not the innocent people who he tried to shift the blame onto.
This book is a glimpse into how structural racism works and why it was successful.
It is a hard read but it is an accurate description of the injustice and pain that so many people have had to live with for generations. And that injustice is still alive and cannot be ignored.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 18, 2022
Loved.it. Written in 1959, so ahead of it's time, and a must read for anyone interested in the sad state of affairs that the USA is nowadays. I can't believe that it has not been more widely read.
March 30, 2025
3.5/5
August 22, 2021
Good story for a relaxing evening reading by the fireplace.
💥 Recommended.
🟣
📺
💥 Recommended.
🟣
📺
March 5, 2018
Adulé par Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison ou Roger Corman, Charles Beaumont est un écrivain au parcours foisonnant et original. Né Charles Leroy Nutt à Chicago en 1929, Beaumont abandonne très vite le lycée et multiplie les petits jobs avant de se consacrer à l'écriture. C'est en 1950 qu'il vend l'une de ses histoires au magazine Amazing stories, une étape décisive sur la route du succès. En 1954, son récit Black Country est la première œuvre de fiction à paraître dans le journal Playboy. Beaumont collabore fréquemment avec le magazine et publie de nombreuses nouvelles dans différents périodiques grand public comme Esquire, ou dans des publications de science-fiction et de fantasy. L'univers télévisuel est son second domaine de prédilection, il est notamment scénariste pour la série The Twilight Zone, La Quatrième dimension, et collabore activement avec Roger Corman pour lequel il écrit les scénarios de L'Enterré vivant, La Malédiction d'Arkham, Le Masque et la mort rouge... Atteint du syndrome de Werner, maladie caractérisée par un vieillissement précoce, Charles Beaumont meurt très jeune, à 38 ans, en Californie.
Avec Un intrus, Charles Beaumont signe un roman politique remarquable, dont le sujet n’a malheureusement rien perdu de son actualité. Plus de cinquante ans après son écriture, les problématiques que soulève ce roman trouvent toujours une résonance, ce qui rend cette réédition encore plus pertinente.
Véritable plaidoyer en faveur de la déségrégation, le roman de Charles Beaumont reste un incontournable qu’il faut avoir lu au moins une fois dans sa vie. Contrairement à bon nombre de romans engagés, il évite l’écueil du sermon et laisse le lecteur faire seul l’analyse glaçante d’une époque conflictuelle et démonter un système de pensée arriéré qui a donné lieu aux pires atrocités.
« Une autre pensée lui vient. Une pensée très vague, dont elle n’a pas entièrement conscience mais qui lui vient quand même. Au fond, qu’est-ce qu’un nègre ? Sont-ils ce que raconte Gramp, ce qu’il rabâche depuis des années, des êtres noirs, stupides et puants, qui errent la nuit dans les buissons, des rasoirs luisant dans leur main noire, prêts à tuer et voler les hommes blancs ou à violer les filles blanches qui passent ? Est-ce vraiment là ce qu’ils sont ? Et, s’il en est ainsi, pourquoi Papa veut-il les aider ? »
La leçon antiségrégationniste est tirée assez habilement et apprise en douceur. C'est une très belle leçon sur la tolérance et le respect que Charles Beaumont a à cœur de transmettre !
Au-delà de son intrigue tendue et bouleversante, Un intrus est un roman intelligent et engagé dont la lecture est plus que jamais nécessaire pour qui s’intéresse à la question raciale, à la haine et au racisme ordinaire.
Avec Un intrus, Charles Beaumont signe un roman politique remarquable, dont le sujet n’a malheureusement rien perdu de son actualité. Plus de cinquante ans après son écriture, les problématiques que soulève ce roman trouvent toujours une résonance, ce qui rend cette réédition encore plus pertinente.
Véritable plaidoyer en faveur de la déségrégation, le roman de Charles Beaumont reste un incontournable qu’il faut avoir lu au moins une fois dans sa vie. Contrairement à bon nombre de romans engagés, il évite l’écueil du sermon et laisse le lecteur faire seul l’analyse glaçante d’une époque conflictuelle et démonter un système de pensée arriéré qui a donné lieu aux pires atrocités.
« Une autre pensée lui vient. Une pensée très vague, dont elle n’a pas entièrement conscience mais qui lui vient quand même. Au fond, qu’est-ce qu’un nègre ? Sont-ils ce que raconte Gramp, ce qu’il rabâche depuis des années, des êtres noirs, stupides et puants, qui errent la nuit dans les buissons, des rasoirs luisant dans leur main noire, prêts à tuer et voler les hommes blancs ou à violer les filles blanches qui passent ? Est-ce vraiment là ce qu’ils sont ? Et, s’il en est ainsi, pourquoi Papa veut-il les aider ? »
La leçon antiségrégationniste est tirée assez habilement et apprise en douceur. C'est une très belle leçon sur la tolérance et le respect que Charles Beaumont a à cœur de transmettre !
Au-delà de son intrigue tendue et bouleversante, Un intrus est un roman intelligent et engagé dont la lecture est plus que jamais nécessaire pour qui s’intéresse à la question raciale, à la haine et au racisme ordinaire.
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