Rating: 5 out of 5

This is the first James Baldwin I’ve read. And I chose it because of it being made into a film. I haven’t seen the film, and won’t, I suspect, for a while. This book is dark, and descriptive. The language is beautiful, and poetic at times. There is a piece about time and the use of the word time that was wonderful to read aloud, and to hear spoken. I’ll be looking out for more James Baldwin books to read.

Highlighted passages:

If you look helpless, people react to you in one way and if you look strong, or just come on strong, people react to you in another way, and, since you don’t see what they see, this can be very painful.

Time: the word tolled like the bells of a church. Fonny was doing: time. In six months’ time, our baby would be here. Somewhere, in time, Fonny and I had met; somewhere, in time, we had loved; somewhere, no longer in time, but, now, totally, at time’s mercy, we loved. Somewhere, in time, Fonny paced a prison cell, his hair growing – nappier and nappier. Somewhere, in time, he stroked his chin, itching for a shave; somewhere, in time, he scratched his armpits, aching for a bath. Somewhere in time he looked about him, knowing that he was being lied to, in time, with the connivance of time. In another time, he had feared life: now, he feared death – somewhere in time. He awoke every morning with Tish in his eyelids and fell asleep every night with Tish tormenting his navel. He lived, now, in time, with the roar and the stink and the beauty and horror of innumerable men: and he had been dropped into this inferno in the twinkling of an eye. Time could not be bought. The only coin time accepted was life. Sitting on the leather arm of Mr Hayward’s chair, I looked through the vast window, way down, on Broadway, and I began to cry.

Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.

Originally posted to my Goodreads account