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Original Essays | October 17, 2009

Jessica Maxwell: IMG God's Tea Party



My Catholic friend tilted her teacup like a fortune-teller. "You know," she said, "I think people who don't have God in their lives are like people... Continue »
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Just Above My Head

by James Baldwin

Just Above My Head Cover

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

The stark grief of a brother mourning a brother opens this novel with a stunning, unforgettable experience.  Here, in a monumental saga of love and rage, Baldwin goes back to Harlem, to the church of his groundbreaking novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, to the homosexual passion of Giovanni's Room, and to the political fire that enflames his nonfiction work.  Here, too, the story of gospel singer Arthur Hall and his family becomes both a journey into another country of the soul and senses--and a living contemporary history of black struggle in this land.

Review:

"If Van Gogh was our 19th-century artist-saint, James Baldwin is our 20th-century one."

--Michael Ondaatje

"The work of a born storyteller at the height of his powers...  glimpses of family life in Harlem, rapturous music-making in the churches, moments of uneasiness in even the most casual meetings between whites and blacks--scenes that Baldwin seems preternaturally gifted in understanding."

--The New York Times Book Review

"A fine novel...it seems impossible for [Baldwin] to write with anything other than eloquence.  His great and peculiar power is to re-create the maddening halfway house that the black man finds himself in late-twentieth-century America."

--The New Yorker

Review:

"If Van Gogh was our 19th-century artist-saint, James Baldwin is our 20th-century one."
-Michael Ondaatje

Review:

"If Van Gogh was our 19th-century artist-saint, James Baldwin is our 20th-century one."

--Michael Ondaatje

"The work of a born storyteller at the height of his powers...  glimpses of family life in Harlem, rapturous music-making in the churches, moments of uneasiness in even the most casual meetings between whites and blacks--scenes that Baldwin seems preternaturally gifted in understanding."

--The New York Times Book Review

"A fine novel...it seems impossible for [Baldwin] to write with anything other than eloquence.  His great and peculiar power is to re-create the maddening halfway house that the black man finds himself in late-twentieth-century America."

--The New Yorker

Review:

"A fine novel...it seems impossible for [Baldwin] to write with anything other than eloquence. His great and peculiar power is to re-create the maddening halfway house that the black man finds himself in late-twentieth-century America."
-The New Yorker

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
nicjas, December 23, 2006 (view all comments by nicjas)
I took a class on Baldwin and having read all his fiction, this was the book that really struck me in everyway. It is a book about community, love, memory, and living in a world where being black could get you killed. Yet, overall, it is a book about being human with all that that entails.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780385334563
Author:
Baldwin, James A.
Publisher:
Delta
Author:
Baldwin, James
Location:
New York
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
Classics
Subject:
American fiction (fictional works by one author)
Subject:
Brothers
Subject:
Gay men
Subject:
Afro-american men
Subject:
Gospel musicians
Subject:
Harlem
Subject:
American fiction (fictional works by one auth
Subject:
African American families
Subject:
New york (n.y.)
Series Volume:
v. 58
Publication Date:
June 2000
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Pages:
592
Dimensions:
806x532x160 111

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