James Baldwin

This novel of Black life in America is written with an impartial attitude

Go Tell It on the Mountain

cheyanne

He had suddenly arrived—and from the moment he arrived until the moment of his death he had filled her life. Not even tonight, in the heart's nearly impenetrable secret place, where the truth is hidden and where only the truth can live, could she wish that she had not known him; nor deny that, so long as he was there, the rejoicing of Heaven could have meant nothing to her—that, being forced to choose between Richard and God, she could only, even with weeping, have turned away from God.

But he was always swearing that he would do better; it was, perhaps, the brutality of his penitence that had kept them together for so long.

But it had been from the first her great mistake—to meet him, to marry him, to love him as she so bitterly had. Looking at his face, it sometimes came to her that all women had been cursed from the cradle; all, in one fashion or another, being given the same cruel destiny, born to suffer the weight of men.

sooo men are evil & painfully irredeemable, & all the time women forgive & redeem & make them holy? sounds about right. gritty, assured debut & baldwin is just brilliant at the complexities of the father-son dynamic (see also gio’s room) 

i hated the ending (non-critical). but it did feel a little lacklustre to have john lose like that to his father. and that’s what it was. a loss. the relationship between esther and gabriel was a horrific injustice, a real highlight. elizabeth’s stuff was brilliant and had those early tinges of if beale street could talk. i cried for her and richard. they loved each other dearly. also! roy’s defense of his mother early was bone-chilling.

Go Tell It on the Mountain

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