Los Angeles During WWII
Summary of If He Hollers Let Him Go
Description of Some of
Chester Himes Books
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Lee Gordon, the protagonist, is a well-educated
middle-class intellectual hired to organize the 3000 black men and
women part of the 30,000 war workforce at Comstock Aircraft Corp.,
but this crusader discovers he knows nothing about blacks. He is
alienated from his wife, Ruth, with a relationship defined by his
enactment of the subjugation placed upon him by the outside world.
The Party assign a white woman to compromise Gordon sexually. Thus, ostensibly a novel of protest, Lonely Crusade is really about American culture's obsession with dominance and power. |
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The protagonist James Monroe is a 19 year old prisoner
sentenced 25 years for armed robbery. The prison world consists of
convoluted versions of forms -sexual, racial, social, political,
economic- found in the outside culture.
First published as Yesterday Will Make You Cry This is the movie poster. I tried to get the book cover, but I couldn't find it. |
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Charles is 3 when the novel opens. His family lives in a house rented by the president of the university where the father teaches. Charles is favored by his near-white mother. The mother's hatred of segregation and prejudice against the darker skinned gets the family in severe trouble in Mississippi , then in Arkansas, and in Cleveland, with her husband's family whom they depend on. |
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A sexually frustrated white woman, Kriss Cummings, and
a racially-frustrated black American male, Jesse Robinson, are
thrown together for a weekend in a New York prohesized by TV's Today
Show monkey J.. Fred Muggs. In the beginning of the noval a beautiful blond Kriss must content with
lesbian Dot at work, while Jesse contends with gay Leroy and Leroy's
ludicrously gay dog Napolean.
Himes tries to say that the many mid-20th century whites regarding the American Black, burdened with all the vices, sophistories, and shams of their white slavers, as primitives with greater morality than themselves, were themselves idiots. |
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Racism, poverty and bad luck are the main themes in
this volume of 60 stories; when a character gets a hold of $10, it's
likely to end in disaster and a $20 debt. In these stories Himes reveals the underbelly of the african american experience
from 1933 to 1979.
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In this novel Himes satirizes social missionaries who preach uplift and promote specious causes. With Rabelaisian zest he portrays Mamie Mason, Harlem's most influential society matron, hosting desegregated sexual orgies, all for the advancement of harmony between the races. Just as eager as Mamie to bask in the favorable light of social justice are liberal whites who wish to be seen amid the "right people." "It is intended," Himes said, "as a satire on middle-class Negroes and their white sponsors who used the Negro problem to rid themselves of other social neuroses. It has been written with good will and is not intended to offend gratuitously nor condemn any class of people for their perfectly natural behavior, given the occasion and catalyst and the opportunity." Perhaps too audacious for U.S. publishers, Pinktoes was launched in Paris by Olympia Press in 1962. Three years later an American edition appeared.
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In the begging of this novel Mrs.
Elizabeth Hancock Brissard, a white female, accompanied Scott
Hamilton, a black male, to his hotel room at 3pm one Sunday. They
were amicable after the end of an affair, and were now together to
work out an arrangement on a novel that they had collaborated on. They were joined by three other black males. Later,
Elizabeth's is found dead, and is discovered to have
had sex 4 times in the past 12 hours.
After a trial, the four are convicted of rape and murder, and sentenced to life. It is the situation in which Black writer Roger Garrison enters with the interest of proving conspiratorial racism and improper police procedures. |
Info Provided by: http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/HIMES/himes-chester_bks1.html
Picture provited by: http://entertainment.msn.com/Movies/Movie.aspx?m=500524
Other Major Works:
- The Primitive ( 1955 ). Reissued as The End of a Primitive with 1955 cuts restored, Norton, 1990. For Love of Imabelle ( 1957 ). Reprinted, 1985, as Rage in Harlem by Allison & Busby
- The Real Cool Killers ( 1959 ). Reprinted by Allison & Busby, 1985.
- The Crazy Kill ( 1959 ). Reprinted by Vintage, 1989.
- The Big Gold Dream ( 1960 ). Reprinted by Thunder's Mouth Press, 1996.
- All Shot Up ( 1960 ). Reprinted by Thunder's Mouth Press, 1996.
- Run Man Run ( 1966 ). Reprinted by Carroll & Graf, 1995.
- Cotton Comes to Harlem ( 1965 ). Reprinted by Vintage, 1988.
- The Heat's On ( 1966 ). Reprinted by Allison & Busby, 1986.
- Blind Man With a Pistol ( 1969 ). Reprinted by Allison & Busby, 1986.
- Black on Black; Baby Sister and Selected Writings ( Doubleday, 1973 ).
- The Quality of Hurt ( 1972 ). Autobiography, Volume I. Reprinted by Thunder's Mouth Press, 1989.
- My Life of Absurdity ( 1976 ). Autobiography, Volume II. Reprinted by Thunder's Mouth Press, 1989.
Plan B ( Mississippi, 1993 ). Unfinished novel.
Books About Himes:
- Conversations with Chester Himes. Edited by Robert E. Skinner and Michel Fabre. Mississippi, 1995.
- James Lundquist, Chester Himes. Ungar, 1976.
- Edward Margolies and Michel Fabre, The Several Lives of Chester Himes. Mississippi, 1997.
- Stephen F. Milliken, Chester Himes: A Critical Appraisal. Missouri, 1976.
- Gilbert H. Muller, Chester Himes. Twayne, 1989.
Chester Himes and the American Prison
Chester Himes Page
Information provided by: http://www.accd.edu/sac/english/bailey/himes.htm