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One of the main reasons I read is to be placed in the shoes of someone different from myself, and I can’t think of a writer who is better at putting me there than James Baldwin. His deep understanding of human nature, his skill at finding just the right detail to convey an emotion or experience, and his ever-present empathy makes every Baldwin reading a deep growth experience. In this collection, he gives us eight stories, and eight very different points of view.

In The Rockpile, using characters from his autobiographical novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, he conveys a relatively simple childhood experience, but which reveals complex family issues that are likely to have lasting impacts.

The Outing is another story from a young boy’s viewpoint. The feelings that come up on a church outing are so delicately and subtly expressed: powerlessness in the awareness of attraction and jealousy; longing in the idea of salvation; dread in the reality of sin. Such beautiful, human stuff.

The Man Child involves Eric, an eight year-old boy whose overly-confident father has his life all planned out for him. He is the prince, the heir, as his father’s friend Jamie says. Unlike the unlucky Jamie, Eric doesn’t have to do anything to get all of his father’s land, and be able to earn a living. Eric’s mother, a tragic figure here, mostly in the shadows, deserves her own story, which Baldwin surely could have written. Very disturbing. I can’t get this one out of my mind.

Previous Condition is about a young Black man who has come to New York from the South, and the racism he experiences. It’s about assimilation, but also the comfort only available from your own people.

Sonny’s Blues is a gorgeous story about brothers and racism and music and love--a work of art that I reviewed separately here: /review/show...

I was thrilled to read This Morning, This Evening, So Soon, which I’ve heard about for years. It comes from the viewpoint of an American who has moved to Europe as Baldwin did, and his mixed feelings about his original and adopted homes. He’s a successful actor and singer, a Black man with a Swedish wife and mixed race child. So many profound ideas in this one. One example I found particularly timely was when he and his latest film’s (French) director are out enjoying Paris nightlife, they meet a group of young Black American tourists, and the director says to the tourists, �'� the only people from your country with whom I have ever made contact are black people--like my good friend, my discovery here,� and he slaps me on the shoulder. ‘Perhaps it is because we, in Europe, whatever else we do not know, or have forgotten, know about suffering. We have suffered here. You have suffered, too. But most Americans do not yet know what anguish is. It is too bad, because the life of the West is in their hands.’�

Come Out of the Wilderness was another insightful story. This time it is a woman who has moved north from Alabama, with some similar themes to Previous Condition.

In Going to Meet the Man, a white, racist sheriff reflects back on a pivotal experience of his childhood. As I said above, Baldwin can put you thoroughly in someone else’s shoes, and these are shoes you do not want to be in. Horrific, and difficult to read.

I watched a documentary about Baldwin recently, in which he emphasized more than once the things that frighten him. His ability first to clearly see and admit this fear, and then to use his immense talents to describe it, could be what makes his writing feel so universal.