Sketch of James Baldwin
by Jameson Currier
ink on paper
20250107001
On Baldwin
Review by Jameson Currier
Born in 1924 in Harlem, James Baldwin became one of the most eloquent voices of American literature. In David Lemming’s new biography of the accomplished author, James Baldwin, Baldwin is revealed as complex and troubled at an early age. The eldest of nine children of a Baptist minister, Baldwin was concerned not only about his African-American heritage and identity, but also about his poverty, his illegitimate birth, his religion, his looks, and his stepfather’s disapproval. Fortunately, Baldwin was also a gifted student and his talent was recognized in his youth by an assortment of mentors and teachers. From age 14 to 16 Baldwin was also a preacher in a small storefront church after school hours, a period which he would write about in his semi-autobiographical first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, published in 1953.
After high school Baldwin opted for the Bohemian life, beginning a literary apprenticeship in Greenwich Village which consisted of low-paying jobs, self-study, and socializing with other artists. He was, however, still a “would be” writer, but in 1948 he left for Paris where he lived for the next eight years. One of the most important discoveries Baldwin made about himself as an expatriate was that Europe did nothing to change his heritage as a black man. But it was in Europe that he began seriously writing. His second novel, Giovanni ‘s Room, deals with an American in Paris torn between his love for a man and his love for a woman. Baldwin was also an openly gay man, and one of the greatest strengths of Leeming ‘s biography is that it pays as much attention to this side of Baldwin’s persona as it does to every other aspect of the writer’s life.
In 1957 Baldwin returned to the United States, making several trips to the South as an activist in the struggle for civil rights. The finest parts of Leeming’s biography detail this period of Baldwin’s life, and includes the story of Baldwin assembling black leaders and celebrities in 1963 to meet with then Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
In fact, many celebrities make guest appearances throughout this biography and Baldwin’s life, among them Lorraine Hansberry, Richard Wright, Maya Angelou, Norman Mailer, Marlon Brando, and William Styron. Leeming shows, however, that even with emerging success, Baldwin’s life was not an easy one. There was trouble with alcohol, lovers, and money as well as an attempted suicide.
Though Leeming’s biography is more an academic achievement than an artistic one, he does regard his subject as something of a prophet. Baldwin also achieved enormous commercial and critical success with the publication of his essays in Notes of a Native Son, Nobody Knows My Name, and The Fire Next Time. Among his final works was The Evidence of Things Not Seen, about the Atlanta child murders from 1979 to 1981. Baldwin continued to be a trans-Atlantic commuter for the rest of his life, dividing his time between the United States and Europe. He died in France in December 1987.
From early 1963 to mid-1967, Lemming worked for Baldwin as a secretary/assistant in New York and Istanbul. In 1979, Baldwin authorized and actively cooperated with the research of this biography. Leeming is currently a professor at the University of Connecticut at Storrs.
Today Baldwin continues to inspire young writers, perhaps the greatest testament of an author’s worth. “I want to be a honest man and a good writer,” Baldwin said. Leeming shows he was all that and more.
James Baldwin
by David Leeming
(Knopf, 1994)
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This review was first published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 22, 1994.
