Black History Month Books and Authors—Chester Himes and Lawrence Jackson

 

American novelist Chester Himes should have been a literary titan. Like contemporaries Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright, Himes wrote and published during the high-water mark of American Literature. He should have been a professional like his parents, (a vocational school instructor and English teacher). He should have been a scholar, like his brother Joseph, a renowned sociology professor.

Instead Chester Himes, convicted of armed robbery, was sentenced to 20 years in prison before he was 25 years old. In prison he applied his intellect to writing short stories to black publications as well as white magazines building his skill and reputation as a talented voice. Released after 10 years, Himes sought to capitalize on his accomplishments.

Langston Hughes introduced Himes into New York publishing pools. Himes became a screenplay writer in Hollywood, (until notoriously biggoted Jack Warner had him fired). He contributed to the NAACP's publications on 1940s race riots. His first novel If He Hollers Let Him Go, was published in 1945. 

Blacklisted from Hollywood, Himes attended the Yaddo artist community, living next to Patricia Highsmith. He would publish five books on race, labor relations, and politics in ten highly productive years. In spite of critical acclaim none would find the success of Ellison and Wright’s works. 

It was only when Himes revisited his past, drawing on his wayward youth to write The Primitive, (retitled A Rage in Harlem) would he find commercial success. Over nine books, Himes paced readers through the underbelly of Harlem with his detectives Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson. He also explored recurring themes of racial injustice, homosexual love, and being an stranger in your own land. 

Lawrence P. Jackson’s biography is an exhaustive chronicle of the complex man and his struggle to be heard or read. Jackson's light touch is both engaging and masterful. Himes is no easy subject. Jackson explores Himes’ tenuous relationships—family and friends, professional and personal—all fraught with Himes’ self-destructive tendencies. He never returned to his family’s embrace after his brother, (blinded as a child in a science demonstration) exceeded him academically as well as in their mother’s affections.

You’ll see shades of Hime’s struggle in A Rage in Harlem between estranged brothers Goldie and Jackson. Himes also explores the tension of men who develop affection and intimacy in prison (only to lose those ties under scrutiny of the larger society) in Rage as well as Cotton Comes to Harlem and The Heat is On. Sexual identity is a reoccurring theme in all of Himes’ work.

Himes legacy is in “lit’ing” up crime fiction while staying true to his experiences as a felon and a black man in America. Poet and satirist Ismael Reed famously said, “Chester Himes taught me the difference between a black detective and Sherlock Holmes.”

Mickey Spillane, Dashiell Hammett, and (to a lesser extent) Raymond Chandler had blazed the hardboiled path but Himes had lived it as a hustler, petty gangster, and heister. Like Hammett, his experience informed his writing in ways Spillane and Chandler could only wonder at. 

A lot of parallels are drawn, (rightly) between Himes and Walter Mosley. But having read the Harlem Detective novels I see direct lines into James Elroy’s work, but without Elroy’s latent vitriol. Himes works should be on every crime fan's to-be-read stack. A Rage in Harlem, the first, is a great place to begin. All of the Harlem Detective Novels are good reads but Digger and Coffin Ed are conspicuously absent from Run Man Run and it is my least favorite of the series.  

In his introduction, Lawrence Jackson states that he intended his biography as the “big book,” Chester Himes’ life deserves. Indeed his fast 600 pages represent a considerable portrait of the artist. But like best of Chester’s own work, I couldn’t help but wish for just a bit more. 

Check out Himes' work. If crime isn’t your thing, check out Lawrence Jackson’s excellent biography. It is among the best I have ever read.

The photo at the top, does not belong to me. It is used for instructional/educational purposes as covered by the Fair Use Doctrine. The photo above, "WAY Past My Bedtime" is by and belongs to myself. I've kindly agreed to the photo's use here for educational/illustrative purposes. Which I think is damn nice of me.