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Hurts, Absurdities and Violence: The Contrary Dimensions of Chester Himes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

A. Robert Lee
A. Robert Lee
Affiliation:
Lecturer in American Literature at the University of Kent at Canterbury.
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Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , April 1978 , pp. 99 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

1 Wright, Richard, “ Two Novels of the Crushing of Men, One White, the Other Black,” PM, Spring 1945Google Scholar.

2 Fanon, Frantz, Peau Noire, Masques Blancs (Paris: Éditions de Scuil, 1952)Google Scholar. Trans. Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove Press, 1970; London: Paladin Books, 1970), pp. 99, 102, 125Google Scholar.

3 Baldwin, James, Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes Of A Native Son (New York: Dial Books, 1961)Google Scholar.

4 The detective fiction has had a complicated history. To date, Himes has written nine, although Run Man Run excludes Coffin Ed and Grave Digger. Titles have changed in different editions. In this list the American editions are given first, then the French and British, (1) For Love Of Imabelle (Greenwich: Fawcett, 1957)Google Scholar. Title changed to A Rage in Harlem (New York: Avon Books, 1965)Google Scholar; La Reine Des Pommes (Paris: Gallimard, Série Noire, 1969)Google Scholar; A Rage In Harlem (London: Panther Books, 1969)Google Scholar. La Reine Des Pommes won the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière. Himes originally gave the book the title of The Five Cornered Square. (2) The Real Cool Killers (New York: Avon Books, 1959; Berkeley Paperback, 1966)Google Scholar; Il Pleut Des Coups Durs (Paris: Gallimard, Série Noire, 1958)Google Scholar; The Real Cool Killers (London: Panther Books, 1969)Google Scholar. Himes's original title was If Trouble Was Money. (3) The Crazy Kill (New York: Avon Books, 1959; Berkeley Paperback, 1966)Google Scholar; Couché Dans Le Pain (Paris: Gallimard, Série Noire, 1958)Google Scholar; The Real Cool Killers (London: Panther Books, 1969)Google Scholar. Himes's original title was A Jealous Man Can't Win. (4) Run Man Run (New York: Putnam's Sons, 1966; Putnam Paperback, 1969)Google Scholar; Dare-Dare (Paris: Gallimard, Série Noire, 1959)Google Scholar; Run Man Run (London: Frederick Muller, 1967; Panther Books, 1969)Google Scholar. (5) The Big Gold Dream (New York: Avon Books, 1960)Google Scholar; Tout Pout Plaire (Paris: Gallimard, Série Noire, 1959)Google Scholar; The Big Gold Dream (London: Panther Books, 1968)Google Scholar. (6) All Shot Up (New York: Avon Books, 1960; Berkeley Paperback, 1960)Google Scholar; Imbroglio Negro (Paris: Gallimard, Série Noire, 1960)Google Scholar; All Shot Up (London: Panther Books, 1969)Google Scholar. Himes's original title was Don't Play With Death. (7) The Heat's On (New York: Putnam's Sons, 1966)Google Scholar. Title changed to Come Back Charleston Blue (New York: Berkeley Paperback, 1972)Google Scholar; Ne Nous Énervons Pas (Paris: Gallimard, Série Noire, 1961)Google Scholar; The Heat's On (London: Frederick Muller, 1966; Panther Books, 1968)Google Scholar. (8) Cotton Comes To Harlem (New York: Putnam's Sons, 1965; Dell Paperback, 1970)Google Scholar; Retour En Afrique (Paris: Éditions Plon, 1964)Google Scholar; Cotton Comes To Harlem (London: Frederick Muller, 1966; Panther Books, 1967)Google Scholar. (9) Blind Man With A Pistol (New York: William Morrow, 1969; Dell Paperback re-titled Hot Day, Hot Night, 1970)Google Scholar; L'Aveugle Au Pistolet (Paris: Gallimard, 1969)Google Scholar; Blind Man With A Pistol (London: Hodder and Stoughton Ltd., 1969; Panther Books, 1971)Google Scholar.

5 The British market got in on the act rather late, mainly through Panther Books. Himes then gave interviews in several newspapers and on late-night television. See: Pendennis, , “ The man who got twenty years,” The Sunday Observer, 29 06 1969Google Scholar; Oakes, Philip, “ The man who goes too fast,” The Sunday Times Magazine, 9 11 1969, pp. 69–70Google Scholar; and Jenkins, David, “ Profile,” Nova, 01 1971Google Scholar. Other brief features appeared in Book-man, The Guardian, and The (London) Evening News. An American feature worth mentioning is Chelminski, Rudolph, “ The Hard-bitten Old Pro Who Wrote Cotton,” Life, 61 (08 1970), 60–61Google Scholar.

6 Lee, A. Robert, “ Violence Real And Imagined: The World Of Chester Himes' Novels,” Negro American Literature Forum, 10 (1976), 13–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Other considerations of violence can be found in articles by Margolies, Edward, “ The Thrillers Of Chester Himes,” Studies In Black Literature, 1 (06 1970), 1–11Google Scholar; Nelson, Raymond, “ Domestic Harlem: The Detective Fiction Of Chester Himes,” The Virginia Quarterly Review, 48 (Spring 1972), 260–76Google Scholar; Reilly, John M., “ Chester Himes' Harlem Tough Guys,” Journal Of Popular Culture, 9 (Spring 1976), 935–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Of more general range, see Bennet, Stephen and Nichols, William W., “ Violence in Afro-American Fiction: An Hypothesis,” Modern Fiction Studies, 17 (Summer 1971), 221–28Google Scholar.

7 Pinktoes (Paris: Olympia Press, 1961; New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1966)Google Scholar; Mamie Mason Ou Un Exercise de la Bonne Volunté (Paris: Éditions Plon, 1966)Google Scholar; Pinktoes (London: Arthur Barker Ltd., 1965; London: Transworld Publishers, Corgi Books, 1967)Google Scholar.

8 Himes has repeated in a number of places the story of how If He Hollers Let Him Go was nominated for Doubleday's George Washington Carver Award, something of an honour for a first novel. One of Doubleday's women editors alleged herself so nauseated by the book, however, that the award was given to a trashy “ race-narrative ” called Mrs. Palmer's Honey.

9 (1) If He Hollers Let Him Go (Garden City: Doubleday, Doran, 1945; Berkeley Paperback, 1955, Signet Books, 1964, 1971; Chatham Bookseller (Hardcover reprint), 1973)Google Scholar; S'll Braille, Lâche-le (Paris: Éditions Albin Michel & Du Monde Entier, 1948)Google Scholar, S'll Braille, Lâche-le (Paris: Gallimard, 1972)Google Scholar; If He Hollers Let Him Go (London: Gray Walls Press, 1946; Falcon Press, 1947; Sphere Paperback, 1967)Google Scholar. (2) Lonely Crusade (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1947; Chatham Bookseller (Hardcover reprint), 1973)Google Scholar; La Croisade De Lee Gordon, Préface de Richard Wright (Paris: Éditions Buchet-Chastel, 1952; Editions le Livre de Poche, 1972)Google Scholar; Lonely Crusade (London: Falcon Press, 1950)Google Scholar. (3) Cast The First Stone (New York: Coward-McCann, 1952; New American Library, 1956; Signet Books, 1972; Chatham Bookseller, 1973 (Hardcover reprint))Google Scholar. (4) The Third Generation (Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1954; New American Library/Signet Books, 1956; Chatham Bookseller (Hardcover reprint), 1973)Google Scholar; La Troisième Génération (Paris: Éditions Plon, 1957; Éditions Gallimard, 1973)Google Scholar. (5) The Primitive (New York: New American Library, 1955)Google Scholar; La Fin d'Un Primitif (Paris: Gallimard, 1956)Google Scholar.

10 Une Affaire de Viol (Paris: Éditions Les Yeux Ouverts, 1963)Google Scholar. I am indebted to Paul Breman, the Dutch antiquarian and anthologist of black poetry, for the loan of his copy. Two articles which deal with the novel are: Fabre, Michel, “ A Case of Rape,” Black World (special Himes issue), 21 (1972), 39–48Google Scholar and Margolies, Edward, “ Experiences of the Black Expatriate: Chester Himes,” College Language Association Journal, 15 (1972), 421–27Google Scholar.

11 Himes in French loses greatly. His thrillers, especially, come across tamed, almost neutered. The street argot and black double-talk spoken with their Harlem parishioners by Coffin Ed and Grave Digger (who translate into French as Ed Cercueil and Fossoyeur) and which so baffle their white Precinct chief Lieutenant Anderson, almost entirely disappears. The codes probably will not translate anyway. The Paris slang into which they are cast gives the novels the look of French romans policiers in exile in America. What remains is plot, still as inventive as Himes's original, but in no way a whole “ translation ” of Himes. The Himes read by the French, for all the commendable enthusiasm they have shown for his work, simply is not the author who first drafted his thrillers in English.

12 The fascination with this paradigm has again been underlined in the massive popularity of Haley, Alex's recent “ faction,” Roots (1976)Google Scholar. An ancestry for black writing which both tells its own story and uses that story to articulate the broader story of black American experience would begin with Martin Delany, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. DuBois and James Weldon Johnson, working forward to Ralph Ellison. One contemporary novel which handles the search for black roots with far greater sublety than Roots is Gaines, Ernest's The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971)Google Scholar.

13 A manifestation of the Sartrean circle's interest in Himes was the following article: Micha, René, “ Les Paroissiens de Chester Himes,” Les Temps Modernes, 20 (1965), 1507–23Google Scholar. A newer phase of interest in Himes has come from Africa, for example, Kom, Ambroise, “ Chester Himes et Sembène Ousman: Un Meme Message aux Peuples Noirs,” L'Afrique Littéraire et Artistique, 42 (1976)Google Scholar.

14 Black On Black (New York: Doubleday, 1973; London: Michael Joseph, 1975)Google Scholar.

15 A full bibliography of Himes's writing is long overdue. Fabre, Michel has made a useful start in “ A Tentative Check List, A Selected Bibliography of Chester Himes,” Black World (special Himes issue), 21 (1972), 76–78Google Scholar. See also Himes's own selected bibliography in My Life of Absurdity (New York: Doubleday, 1976), pp. 395–98Google Scholar; Turner, Darwin, ed., Afro-American Writers, Goldentree Bibliography (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts 1970), pp. 57–58Google Scholar; Williams, John A. and Harris, Charles F., eds., Amistad I: Writings On Black History And Culture (New York: Vintage Books 1970), pp. 92–93Google Scholar; Davies, Arthur P., From The Dark Tower, Afro-American Writers 1900–1960 (Howard University Press 1974), pp. 272–74Google Scholar. As far as I can trace, Himes's stories and essays were published in the following magazines: Abbott's Monthly, Esquire, The Bronzeman, Opportunity, Coronet, The Crisis, Negro Story, Negro Digest, The New York Times Book Review, New Masses and Afro-American. Other pieces appeared in newspapers like the Cleveland Daily News (40 prose poems), Pittsburgh Courier, the Atlanta Daily World and the Chicago Defender. Black On Black selects from these writings. Himes's important “ The Dilemma Of The Negro Novelist in The United States” appears in Williams, John A., ed., Beyond The Angry Black (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1966)Google Scholar.

16 The Quality Of Hurt: The Autobiography Of Chester Himes, Vol. 1 (New York: Double-day, 1972)Google Scholar, The Quality Of Hurt (London: Michael Joseph, 1974)Google Scholar; My Life Of Absurdity: The Autobiography Of Chester Himes, Vol. 2 (New York: Doubleday, 1976)Google Scholar. Michael Joseph inform me that they do not plan to bring out My Life Of Absurdity.

17 “ My Man Himes,” in Amistad 1, cited above, also reprinted in Williams, John A., Flash-backs, A Twenty Year Diary Of Article Writing (New York: Doubleday 1973)Google Scholar. “ Chester Himes: Traveler On The Long, Rough, Lonely Old Road,” Interview by Fuller, Hoyt (1968), Black World, 21, 4–22, 87–98Google Scholar. This issue of Black World also contains Michel Fabre's bibliography and his analysis of Une Affaire de Viol and a useful discussion of Himes by Ishmael Reed: “ Chester Himes: Writer,” pp. 24–38. Himes has given a number of interviews to French journals, of which the most important are those in L'Arche and Adam (not to be confused with the English journal of the same name). He has also been the subject of a Le Monde double-page feature.

18 Of the Harlem he has created in the Série Noire thrillers Himes writes, “ The Harlem of my books was never meant to be real; I never called it real; I just wanted to take it away from the white man if only in my books ” (p. 126; Himes's italics)Google Scholar.

19 Lundquist, James, Chester Himes (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1976, $8.00). Pp. ix, 166Google Scholar; Milliken, Stephen F., Chester Himes: A Critical Appraisal (Columbia, Missouri: The Univ. of Missouri Press, 1976, $11.00). Pp. 312Google Scholar.

20 See, for example, Gayle, Addison Jr., ed., The Black Aesthetic (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor, 1972)Google Scholar. A useful survey of the climate in which the debate has been conducted can be found in Cunliffe, Marcus, “ Black Culture and White America,” Encounter, 34 (01 1970), 22–35Google Scholar.

21 Jones, LeRoi, Home: Social Essays (New York: Apollo Editions, 1966), p. 13Google Scholar.

22 Reed, Ishmael, ed., 19 Necromancers From Now: An Anthology Of Original American Writing For The 1970s (New York: Doubleday, Anchor Books Edition, 1970), p. ixGoogle Scholar.