On the Southern Literary Trail discussion

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FYI: Digital and audio copies of this book are available from Hoopla.

I last read this in high school, so not sure I fully appreciated it at that point. I'm looking forward to this one.

This is one of my all time favorite novels but I won't be re-reading it now. I strongly recommend it!

I'm definitely up for this one. I just need to clear a backlog then I'll be good to start. I've been wanting to read this for such a long time.

Lisa (NY) wrote: "This is one of my all time favorite novels but I won't be re-reading it now. I strongly recommend it!"

Is this a novel or a memoir. I've been reading it for a few days and I have the impression that it is a memoir.

Goodreads classifies it as autobiography.

It is a semi-autobiographical novel. Today it would probably be classified as auto fiction.

Lisa (NY) wrote: "It is a semi-autobiographical novel. Today it would probably be classified as auto fiction."

How does one define "semi-autobiographical"? I always assume that every memoir author takes liberties with the truth.

Tom wrote: "Lisa (NY) wrote: "It is a semi-autobiographical novel. Today it would probably be classified as auto fiction."

How does one define "semi-autobiographical"? I always assume that every memoir author..."

Sources on the internet are very confused about whether "Black Boy" is a novel or memoir and alternately calls it both. It does follow the basics of his life but Wright apparently didn't claim it was all true.

Maybe nonfiction fiction?

I will be joining in. I hope to read Richard Wright: The Life and Times by Hazel Rowley. I will read it before, during,after reading the novel.

Cynda wrote: "I will be joining in. I hope to read Richard Wright: The Life and Times by Hazel Rowley. I will read it before, during,after reading the novel."Cynda, I read that excellent book many years ago and perhaps will dip into it again.

Cynda, now that's the way to immerse yourself in a book!

Diane a while back when I read Harlem: The Four Hundred Year History from Dutch Village to Capital of Black America by Jonathan Gill, I remembered that I have been promising myself since forever I want to read Black Boy. I want to get it done right or at least good enough :)

Unless Lisa can suggest another Harlem history that I might find among the services I use.

Strange to read about Harlem in a group on southern literature.

I'd really like to join, but my June is already kinda full (with more Black writers, incidentally).

A lot of Southerners ended up in Harlem during the Great Migration, a.g.e.. Not really strange at all.

I agree Diane. At some point I'd like to think the group will read The Warmth of Other Suns , which also isn't 'set' in the south.

And not just in Harlem, for that matter.

Right. I have just read The Warmth of Other Suns. Also Los Angles and now I doger. . .Looking forward to doing a quick look over the book and discussing here.

Chicago, I believe.

I'll be starting this one today.

I'm going to start in the middle of next week.

As much as I feel for the young boy that Richard was, I can't help sympathizing deeply with his mother. Kids can send you over the edge even in good circumstances, but these were extreme, and Richard was a handful. Smart kids usually are.

Agreed. I found him to be exasperating in the beginning.

I can also see the irony in the black community and their intolerance and hatred of Jews. You would think that their own experiences with racism and prejudice would make them more inclusive.

The difficulties between Jews and Blacks go back to what. . .the 15th century when Dutch Jews started up the modern slave trade.

When Jews were being encouraged/forced to leave Europe or hide in plain sight or to be tortured and killed, many Jews put trading skills to use in other lands, including the slave trade in Africa.

That's interesting Cynda, something I was not aware of. However, I don't think the kids taunting the Jews knew that here, they'd just been told that the Jews were Christ killers.

So far, the mistreatment of Richard by the religious community and his family was so awful, the fear of whites is beside the point.

Ahhh. I will start listening to audiobook in a few minutes.

Diane, after reading the first 2 chapters, I have to say your right. Richard Wright says that most people he knew were educated enough to read and write, that he was as educated as anyone he knew. This would indicate that the people knew did not know of some Dutch Jews being African slave traders.

And even more interesting to me--I think to other readers of this memoir too--is the implied comparison of black people practicing prejudice since babyhood in a way similar to how white people practicing prejudice since babyhood. Commonly at that time.

I have heard something said like this: White folks learn prejudice at the same time they eat their pablum/baby cereal. Would have similar for black folks, no reason to time differently.

Good point Cynda. His family taught him to fear whites, but not how to act around them in his best interests (for that time). His grandmother taught him to hate religion because of her fanaticism. His childhood was very conflicted because he was pulled in so many different directions.

That's the thing Diane. Teaching how to share our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces . . .I would like to say all these difficulties are in the past. They are not.

I chat on bus rides. When I told a black woman of middle age that I too have some African ancestry, she was able to open up a bit to tell me how she taught her teenaged sons how to position their bodies for police inspection. She had some difficult feelings about it. Of course she did. This was within last several years.

I started this morning, and I'm sure I'll warm to the man, but I've have not warmed to the child yet.

He was a difficult child, Dave.

Cynda, I always feel a little uncomfortable with reading black authors, because, as much as I can sympathize and feel outrage at the treatment they describe, I can never know the depth of their experience because I haven't lived with it. It is important to know about it, but you are right. These difficulties are not in the past, and our current political climate has made it worse.

Dave wrote: "I started this morning, and I'm sure I'll warm to the man, but I've have not warmed to the child yet."

Definitely! I found him exasperating as a child.

Diane wrote: "Cynda, I always feel a little uncomfortable with reading black authors, because, as much as I can sympathize and feel outrage at the treatment they describe, I can never know the depth of their exp..."

As I'll be going to see Percival Everett and Cord Jefferson tonight, I made a point of watching American Fiction yesterday, the movie they collaborated on based on Everett's Erasure. It was delightful, but more to the point, it was about a black author who, as a joke ( or protest, or whatever), writes a book that totally panders to elite whites' expectations of the black experience. Needless to say, the book becomes a best-seller, much to his chagrin. The movie is on Prime and well worth watching. I'm also tempted to add the book to the fast-growing list of his that I am reading.

I've just got to the end of Chapter 5 and I'm really enjoying this. I'm not a fan of either his Granny or Aunt Addie. What's probably saddened me the most was the treatment of his Grandpa after the Civil War. I can't help thinking that was probably quite common.

Dave wrote: "I can't help thinking that was probably quite common...."

Unfortunately, such treatment was more the rule than the exception. There are countless accounts of black soldiers being lynched for wearing their uniforms. I assume that the logic was that if a black man was given a gun and taught how to fight, then he would be a danger to the status quo once he returned home.

I have added American Fiction to my watch list. Looks so worthwhile.

I assume Ralph Ellison read this before writing Invisible Man. A couple of his scenes are the same that are described in Black Boy, such as the boxing and the graduation speech.

Cynda wrote: "I have added American Fiction to my watch list. Looks so worthwhile."

I was able to pick up a signed copy of Erasure at the event the other night and look forward to reading it. Not sure when I'll get the chance, though.

Satire is powerful thing. It is can ridicule, be ridiculed, understood, not understood and more. . . .I will start with movie. I suspect I will feel compelled to find a copy of Erasure :)

Diane wrote: "I assume Ralph Ellison read this before writing Invisible Man. A couple of his scenes are the same that are described in Black Boy, such as the boxing and the graduation speech."

Ellison wrote an essay about the book, "Richard Wright's Blues" (it can be found in his collection Shadow and Act. The essay is very positive, but Ellison's view of Wright's art would come to be very complicated. He really didn't see himself as a literary "descendent" of Wright. (Read "The World and the Jug," written in 1963, and also included in Shadow and Act, for more on that).

In "Richard Wright's Blues," Ellison highlights a very significant point about Wright--his extreme sense of individualism, which developed in him at quite a young age, while growing up in a society/culture that, compared to the dominant "white" culture in the United States, was/is very group-oriented. I think Wright's extreme individualism, coupled with his hyper-sensitivity and intelligence as a child, really "soured" him on African-American culture. At least that was the case during the 1940s when he wrote Black Boy; I believe he came to appreciate Black culture much more later in life. (By the way, if someone whose read more about him could correct me on this, I'd appreciate it.)

I'm reading my old copy of Black Boy, that only includes the first part and ends with his migration North. Wright had originally meant to publish both parts, but the Book of the Month Club, which really boosted sales of Native Son, wanted Wright to leave out Part Two. He agreed, hoping to get the same boost for Black Boy that he'd gotten for Native Son. (And that did happen.)

From what I understand, Wright believed the BOTMC made this decision under pressure from the American Communist Party. (1945 must have had a quite different political climate than what later developed during the 1950s!) The second part wasn't published until 1977, as American Hunger.

Wright rewrote the last few pages of Black Boy so that it works as an ending for the entire book, and not just part one. That new ending includes the line about the "warmth of other sons" that Isabel Wilkerson used to title her book about Black migration.

(More recent editions of Black Boy probably have this information, but I thought I'd add it for anyone reading an older copy)

It ain't a big deal but I have a hard time believing that a 7th Day Adventist would make lard gravy.

I'm lost JC. Why wouldn't they, are they vegetarians?

It advocates a vegetarian diet

Lard was plentiful and cheap in that time and place and even though it's pig fat it's not an actual piece of meat. Southerners cook with lard. My mother never even heard of olive oil, and vegetable oil (Crisco in our world) was more expensive when it was introduced. Plus, sorry to say, lard just tastes better.

They follow Jewish dietary laws. Lard isn't allowed. They follow a good portion of the law which is why his grandmother wouldn't allow him to work on Saturdays until she was convinced he was going to hell regardless.