Years
ago, I read an excerpt of this book for a college class, and ever since, it was
on my list of “books to read someday.”
My to-buy book list on Amazon is long enough that I never prioritized it
there, but not long ago, I happened upon a copy at my local used book store and
snatched it up.
A
memoir by novelist Richard Wright, Black
Boy (American Hunger) chronicles his hard growing-up years in early-20th-century
Mississippi and his eventual escape to Chicago, where the promised American
dream of the North isn’t as freely available as he’d hoped. From the gnawing poverty to the soul-crushing
racism, from the self-nurtured hunger for literature to the explorations of new
political ideas, the book describes a tense journey of self, society, and what
manhood means to a person who’s had the rites of manhood denied him based on
the color of his skin.
This is
an excellent book, and I’m glad the copy I found was recent enough that it
included both sections of the story.
When it was originally published, the memoir only included Wright’s
years in the South, ending with his departure to Chicago. Part 2, his experiences in the North, weren’t
published in their entirety until after Wright’s death more than 30 years
later, and the whole work wasn’t released together in one volume until
1991. I think it’s important to have
both. Many people, like Richard,
probably have a general sense that his struggles with racism and
marginalization are largely over when he leaves the South, but that isn’t the
case. Although it’s comforting in the
North, to think of past chronic racism as a “Southern issue,” the North had
(and continues to have) its own problems surrounding race, and Wright’s
migration doesn’t equal deliverance.
Certainly, it’s of a different tenor and type, but it’s there all the
same.
There’s
so much to explore within this book. The
taut beauty of the prose, the child/teen focal point, and the Jim-Crow-era
setting makes me think of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, although it is very much its own work. Just the fact that Richard is a boy makes his
experiences very different. His temper
and impulsive reactions get him labeled as trouble-making, volatile, even
dangerous, from a very young age, and his teenage years are haunted by a
constant threat of violence from those who think he doesn’t know his
place. He’s punished, prayed for, and
passed from relative to relative, and he cycles through job after job – going
in and out of school as his family’s ability allows – struggling to earn enough
to keep his biting hunger at bay while acquiring a reputation for having a
temperament unsuited for working for white people. He survives because he refuses to
starve. He tries to kick down every wall
he comes across. And he pulls cons to
get books, because the written word gives his soul more nourishment than
anything he’s ever encountered. He
believes he can use his education to get himself out, yes, but it’s more than
that. It makes his world larger and his
mind stretch further, and it sustains him in an environment where everything
seems harsh and hateful. Is it any wonder
that he tries to pass that love down in such an exquisitely-written book?
Warnings
Strong
thematic elements, language (including racial slurs,) violence, sexual content,
and drinking/smoking.
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