New York : HarperPerennial ModernClassics, 2006.
xiv, 419, 14 p. : ill. ; 21 cm.
One of the joys of being a librarian is walking the stacks and seeing a book that keeps calling out to you, "Read me." It must have been about 8 or 9 years ago that I finally read Wright's stunning 1940 novel, Native Son. Since then his autobiography has been sitting on the shelf demanding to be read, and so I finally have done it. It is amazing!
What I loved about Wright's book is the way it puts you completely in the mind and heart of a young African American male growing up in the Jim Crow south in the early twentieth century. It's especially interesting in that Wright is never able to learn to hide his thoughts from white people - even when he tries, and he realizes that - in the racist South - could easily cost him his life.
It is also a wonderful book for anyone who is an artist or loves art, but really has no idea why. There are times as a boy, where he writes just for the sheer delight of using language. It is something that almost none of his peers understands or appreciates. The book is also tribute to the stubborn grace of someone clinging to his integrity while being threatened by the larger society with its violent racism, and his more intimate social circle where his assertion of his right to think independently is ridiculed and punished by teachers, guardians, religious people, and family.
The book breaks down into two major sections - his life in the Jim Crow south (Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee) and his move to Chicago where he gets involved in the heavily Stalinist, intellectually repressive Communist Party. Both sections are very interesting, but my guess is that many students would especially like the first half.
I would definitely recommend this book to students. It is a fascinating, well written book.
