Chester Himes

In 1937 Chester Himes, newly released from a seven-year stretch in the Ohio State Penitentiary for grand larceny, began his first novel, Yesterday Will Make You Cry. By turns brutal and lyrical and never less than totally honest, it tells the autobiographical story of young Jimmy Monroe's passage through the prison system, which tests the limits of his sanity, his capacity for suffering, and his definition of love. Stunningly candid about racism, homosexuality, and prison corruption, the book would take sixteen years and four subsequent revisions before being published in a much-altered form as Cast the First Stone in 1953. Even bowdlerized, it was recognized as a sardonic masterpiece of debasement and transfiguration. This edition, the first hardcover publication in Norton's Old School Books series, presents for the first time the book precisely as Himes intended it to be read, with its raw honesty and startling compassion entirely intact.

The late African-American novelist Chester Himes (1909-1984) is well known both in America and Europe for his moving depictions of black men destroyed by a pervasive racism and for darkly humorous stories of Harlem's underworld. His novels and stories are all the more striking because they are infused with his own varied experiences as a petty criminal, convict, writer, and expatriate. Himes was equally revealing in the many interviews he granted during his long and tumultuous career in America and France. Himes displays a remarkable candor in all his interviews. Although he never involved himself in any of the black political movements of his lifetime, he did not flinch from speaking his mind about racial politics in America. He was straightforward, as well, in speaking about his relationships with other black writers. As a contemporary of Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Ralph Ellison, he could be brutally direct in his opinions of them and their work. He leavens such criticism by being equally frank about himself and his shortcomings. Compiled here for the first time and drawn from many sources, these interviews span Himes's career and present a bold picture of a proud, brilliant, and combative man who commands both attention and respect.

"Chester Himes and John A. Williams met in 1961, as Himes was on the cusp of transcontinental celebrity and Williams, sixteen years his junior, was just beginning his writing career. Both men would go on to receive international acclaim for their work, including Himes's Harlem detective novels featuring Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson and Williams's major novels The Man Who Cried I Am, Captain Blackman, and Clifford's Blues. Dear Chester, Dear John is a landmark collection of correspondence between these two friends, presenting nearly three decades worth of letters about their lives and loves, their professional and personal challenges, and their reflections on society in the United States and abroad."--BOOK JACKET.

"Pinktoes," Chester Himes said, "is a term of indulgent affection applied to white women by Negro men, and sometimes conversely by Negro women to white men, but never adversely by either.". In this rowdy work of fiction that debunks self-satisfied do-gooders, Himes satirizes social missionaries who preach uplift and promote specious causes. With Rabelaisian zest he portrays Mamie Mason, Harlem's most influential society matron, hosting desegregated sexual orgies, all for the advancement of harmony between the races. Just as eager as Mamie to bask in the favorable light of social justice are liberal whites who wish to be seen amid the "right people.". Printed in Paris in 1962 because it was perhaps too confrontational for U. S. publishers, this sex farce is regarded as Himes's most daring work of fiction.

"This classic story of a man living in fear every day of his life for simply being black is as powerful today as it was when it was first published in 1947. Set in Southern California in the early forties, the novel spans four days in the life of Bob Jones, a black man relentlessly plagued by the effects of World War II racism. His is a society drenched in insidious race consciousness, and as the novel progresses these surroundings take their toll on Jones's behavior, thoughts and emotions - even before he is accused of a brutal crime he did not commit."--BOOK JACKET.

Outside the apartment where a wake is going on, the manager of the A & P across the street is robbed. Reverend Short, a storefront preacher addicted to opium and brandy, is watching from a bedroom window in the flat. He leans too far and falls out; a bread basket, sitting outside the bakery below, saves him. Back inside, he says he sees a vision of a dead man. Outside, in the very basket Short landed in, lies the body of Valentine Haines. Who murdered Val? It is up to Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson to find out.

The wedding took place in Naples, a city of burning rubble and poverty -- for the time was 1944 and the Germans were in retreat. Thousands of Italians were starving and prepared to do anything to survive. Liana was more determined than most, not only to survive, but to get out of the hell-hole that Naples had become. She had lied, cheated, played provocative games, and now stood in a crumbling church before an emaciated priest. Beside her stood Nicholas Hamilton-Howard, Earl of Wessex, a young English officer who was totally bewitched by the exquisite Italian girl. Even during the service she was terrified -- terrified that someone would reveal the truth about her -- but when the final blessing was given she knew she was safe and vowed to devote her life to making Nicholas happy, even though she did not love him -- even though their life together was to be built on lies and deception.

This collection of three novels presents Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, Harlem's toughest pair of cops. Renowned for their meanness and always armed with their legendary nickel-plated colts, they patrol the streets of Harlem and attempt to keep some semblance of law and order.

"Black flim-flam man Deke O'Hara is no sooner out of Atlanta's state penitentiary than he's back on the streets working the scam of a lifetime. As sponsor of the Back-to-Africa movement he's counting on the big Harlem rally to produce a big collection for his own private charity."--Back cover.