Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin (1952. Bantam. ISBN 978-0-440-33007-3)
The term “angry black man” has a pejorative tone to it these days. There is, in a certain segment of our American population, a brooding fear of inter-city youth of color who wear their pants on the ground, ball caps unbent and cocked to one side, and show the waistbands of their boxer shorts as a badge of honor as they walk down the hot sidewalks of summer. James Baldwin, one of America’s premier literary figures of the last half of the 20th century, was black. He also wrote one hell of a debut novel, Go Tell it on the Mountain, revealing and reflecting nearly sixty years ago (just before the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Brown v. Board of Education) on where some of that anger comes from.
The novel depicts the life of Johnny, his younger siblings, their mother, and their father, a fire and brimstone preacher. Within its slender confines (the book comes in at 262 pages in mass market paperback; maybe 60,000 words), Go Tell it on the Mountain doesn’t seek to answer all the questions about race in America. And it doesn’t attempt to explain the forces behind black migration from the south to the urban centers of the north. But what it does do is depict the frustration, anger, resentment, and complex religious tension of African Americans as they sought a better life away from the geographic roots of their enslavement.
This is a complex familial story filled with intensely drawn characters, believable plotting, and great dialogue. The evolution of Gabriel (the preacher) from scalawag to man of God beneath the scrutinizing eyes of his sister Florence, is masterful and memorably wrought; revelatory without being predictable.
A true American classic. For more about the author, James Baldwin, go to http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/james-baldwin/about-the-author/59/.
5 stars out of 5.
If you’re interested in reading literature set around African American characters, you might want to follow up a reading of Go Tell it on the Mountain by buying a copy of my novel, Esther’s Race either from this website or from the usual suspects. You can read more about Esther DuMont under the “Books” tab on the dashboard above.
Peace.
Mark
