and Tell Me How Long The Train’s Been Gone
(1968), extend his preoccupations with various
crossings between race and sexuality. In addition,
Baldwin begins to construct an extended definition
of black manhood, a project that would continue
throughout the remainder of his published works.
Moreover, these novels become meditations on the
necessity of truth and honesty in human relation-
ships. He also wrote two plays during this time, The
Amen Corner (1968) and Blues for Mister Charlie
(1964), which were well received by audiences.
The 1970s saw Baldwin’s career as novelist begin
to wind down, but not until he produced If Beale
Street Could Talk (1974) and his last novel, Just
above My Head (1979), two very different novels
that, at the same time, are variations on the themes,
character types, and situations that constitute his
canon. Indeed, Just above My Head is culminatory
in scope and treatment as Baldwin attempts to
crown his previous achievements by producing the
quintessential narrator/witness, Hall Montana; the
fully composite black homosexual artist in society,
Arthur Montana; the victim-made-whole through
the renouncing of religion and the acceptance of
truth, Julia Miller; and young black males striving,
but often failing, to make their way in a society
that uses but neither values nor understands them,
the Trumpets of Zion.
Beginning in the 1950s, Baldwin’s essays ap-
peared regularly in leading literary magazines and
intellectual journals, including Harper’s, The New
Yorker, Esquire, and Partisan Review. Not only were
his topics timely and his analyses far-reaching, but
also the combination of an elegant prose style
and a driving fury seething just below the surface
established Baldwin as a true public intellectual
and an ardent spokesperson for civil rights. No-
table among these essays is “EVERYBODY’S PROTEST
NOVEL,” in which Baldwin argues for artistic free-
dom for black writers, especially from the mantra
of the protest tradition presided over by RICHARD
WRIGHT. Likewise, “The Fire Next Time” put white
America on notice and prophesied correctly the
turmoil that the civil rights struggle would become
during the 1960s.
Baldwin’s last published works also include a
brief selection of his poems, Jimmy’s Blues (1985),
and the essay collections The Devil Finds Work
(1976) and The Evidence of Things Not Seen (1985).
Among his unpublished manuscripts are two that
he was working on at the time of his death, “Har-
lem Quartet” and “The Welcome Table.” Though
these late works offer little that is new in terms of
Baldwin’s approach or concerns, they confirm his
continued focus on the things that had made his
writing provocative and alluring in the first place.
James Baldwin is not easily categorized as a
writer. He is modern in many ways and both tradi-
tional and contemporary in many others; that he
wrote in so many varied genres does not make such
categorization easier. For example, although he
broke with protest writing in the mid-1950s, much
of Baldwin’s work continues in the protest vein, yet
some of the works, especially If Beale Street Could
Talk and Just Above My Head, transcend protest
and become almost meditative. Similarly, many of
the essays, though they do offer protest, tend to be
cast more broadly as protests of the human con-
dition. Stylistically, Baldwin is a probing, incisive
writer who examines every nook and cranny of the
matter at hand in an effort to get at the essence
of truth, regardless of how elusive it is. His style
is often dismissed as repetitive and as evidence of
poor control, but the final revelations, regardless
of how brief, show how Baldwin adds to the clar-
ity of his examination cubit by cubit. In addition,
Baldwin’s texts have frequently been regarded as
“preacherly,” owing much to his early experience
as a child preacher in the fire-baptized church.
Even so, there is a sincerity about Baldwin’s work,
and doubtless he was committed to exposing the
whole truth, often at great personal expense. Also,
music—most often jazz, BLUES, and gospel—per-
vades Baldwin’s texts, and just as often the medita-
tion turns to musicality, musicianship, and the role
and special challenges of the musician as artist. Fi-
nally, Baldwin’s lifelong project was the construc-
tion of a definitive statement on black manhood,
a definition he sought to establish through both
fictional and nonfictional means.
Critical appreciation for James Baldwin has
been widespread, but until recently the attention
has been devoted mostly to the earlier works, while
the later works have often been neglected. There28 Baldwin, James