Scan barcode
savaging's review
3.0
James Baldwin's last novel was an uneven experience for me. Sometimes I was sobbing at the depth and meaning and love in the book. Sometimes I felt cold and bored. The first paragraph of the book is maybe the most powerful opening I've ever read. But then before long I was mired in long passages describing the details of Christmas shopping for each member of the family.
My favorite parts of the book were musings on race, which maybe means I'm always going to prefer Baldwin's essays to his fiction. But I also appreciated the story's gentle wish-fulfillment, showing family members being kind and loving to each other, supporting their gay brother and son and friend, who supports them back in return. This felt like an important counterweight to the systems of violence and oppression that menace them at every side. The fact that they love each other isn't enough to save them -- but it opens up their stories to something more than violence and victimhood. Which is maybe also why Baldwin wanted to take time depicting Christmas shopping, I guess.
An aside: The old paperback cover shows two straight couples, one in a steamy nearly-nude make-out pose. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? Is this to disguise a very gay book (yes siree, we got some straight sex in this book)? Is this to give readers plausible deniability? I laugh every time I look at this cover.
My favorite parts of the book were musings on race, which maybe means I'm always going to prefer Baldwin's essays to his fiction. But I also appreciated the story's gentle wish-fulfillment, showing family members being kind and loving to each other, supporting their gay brother and son and friend, who supports them back in return. This felt like an important counterweight to the systems of violence and oppression that menace them at every side. The fact that they love each other isn't enough to save them -- but it opens up their stories to something more than violence and victimhood. Which is maybe also why Baldwin wanted to take time depicting Christmas shopping, I guess.
An aside: The old paperback cover shows two straight couples, one in a steamy nearly-nude make-out pose. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? Is this to disguise a very gay book (yes siree, we got some straight sex in this book)? Is this to give readers plausible deniability? I laugh every time I look at this cover.
ernieh's review
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
djvuuu's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
digitalcage's review
5.0
Even though Baldwin's final novel, [b:Just Above My Head|38457|Just Above My Head|James Baldwin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403171798l/38457._SY75_.jpg|248225], was completed more than twenty-five years after his first, [b:Go Tell It on the Mountain|17143|Go Tell It on the Mountain|James Baldwin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348424233l/17143._SY75_.jpg|1027995], both novels tell the story of a young, gay, black man growing up in a religious and musical community in Harlem. It's substantial enough material to merit treatment in two separate novels, and Baldwin allows the full measure of his intervening years as a writer, public intellectual and citizen of the world to inform his latter approach. So where [b:Go Tell It on the Mountain|17143|Go Tell It on the Mountain|James Baldwin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348424233l/17143._SY75_.jpg|1027995] was fiery and angry, a sermon shouted into the sanctuary, [b:Just Above My Head|38457|Just Above My Head|James Baldwin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403171798l/38457._SY75_.jpg|248225] is warm and sprawling in an unabashedly novelistic way, confident in its scope and embrace of uncertainty. Characters, even vile ones, are written with a generosity of heart that is pierced through with the flashes of righteous anger that are the hallmarks of Baldwin's social criticism. Everyone in this novel is loved by Baldwin, and no one is spared the full extent of his penetrating gaze--which might be the ultimate act of love. The impenetrable mystery of other hearts and minds is transcended, startlingly, by Baldwin shifting the narrative voice from Hall Montana, brother of the novel's object of focus, the famous fictional gospel singer Arthur Montana, by entering, recreating and narrating parts of Arthur's and other characters/ inner lives that are far removed and actually unknowable by Hall himself. Grief, bafflement, abuse and inhumanity are the incidents that most often drive the novel forward, but love--a profound, messy kind of love--fills every line and shapes [b:Just Above My Head|38457|Just Above My Head|James Baldwin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403171798l/38457._SY75_.jpg|248225] into a novel of shimmering wonder and exultant fellowship. If [b:Just Above My Head|38457|Just Above My Head|James Baldwin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403171798l/38457._SY75_.jpg|248225] was a novel of departure--the book Baldwin famously said he needed to first write if he was ever going to be able to write anything else--then [b:Just Above My Head|38457|Just Above My Head|James Baldwin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403171798l/38457._SY75_.jpg|248225] is a novel of arrival, the one Baldwin never could have written if he hadn't written everything else. Among its many wonders, it is a summary by of one of America's greatest writers of his imagination, lyricism, and the love and bafflement he cannot help but feel for all of humankind.
cookie_khumalo's review
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Incest, Grief, Racism, Sexual assault, Hate crime, and Rape
11corvus11's review
5.0
This book was absolutely beautiful, sorrowful, and enchanting. I had to take a break at one point to get other reading done and when I returned to it weeks later, Baldwin's writing brought me right back in. This is my favorite of his books that I've read. It also seems to.have the most of him in it meaning the James Baldwin I understand from documentaries and his non-fiction. It's also the gayest of his books that I've read which is an added bonus.
felicitousculex's review
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
foofers1622's review
5.0
Wow! I'm ashamed to say this is my first novel I've read by James Baldwin at the age of 33. I have never read something with such passion. You can feel the hurt and love drip out of these pages. I also listened to this and Kevin Kenerly brought this story to life. Thankfully, he reads other books of Mr. Baldwin's. I can't wait to fall deep into another one of his beautiful stories.
erikaretia's review
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
lezreadalot's review against another edition
4.0
I moved like an advance scout in wicked and hostile territory, my whole life was a strategy and a prayer: I knew I could not live without my brother.
4.5 stars. By god did James Baldwin know how to write. The premise of this novel (a man loses his famous, gospel-singing brother, and takes us on a grief-filled and nostalgic journey through their lives and past relationships) isn't something that I'd have gravitated to necessarily, but there were so many parts of it that were beautiful and struck a chord deeply within me. I'm so glad I read it. From the very beginning chapter, I loved these brothers, and Hall's outpouring of anguish when he hears of Arthur's death got to me even when I didn't know them as characters. By the end, I had tears in my eyes. This is an exploration of their relationship with the church and God, the various loves in their lives, Arthur's grappling with his sexuality, racism in America (and abroad), their perception of themselves as black men. Baldwin has a way of writing about simple things in a really really beautiful way, but a way that never becomes haughty or inaccessible. His writing is grounded, and oftentimes very crude, and the fact of that just made me love his insight even more? I was just bowled over by all the love in this book and how it was conveyed: the brotherly love, love between friends, lovers, husband and wife... There are some tender moments between men that made me want to cry, both romantic and platonic.
Niggers can sing gospel as no other people can because they aren’t singing gospel— if you see what I mean . When a nigger quotes the Gospel, he is not quoting: he is telling you what happened to him today, and what is certainly going to happen to you tomorrow: it may be that it has already happened to you, and that you, poor soul, don’t know it. In which case, Lord, have mercy! Our suffering is our bridge to one another.
Another thing this book does that I would've never expected to like is play with points of view. Technically it's mostly all told from Hall's first person POV, but Baldwin imbues him with a kind of omniscience. Perhaps it's because he's been told of these events, or he's narrating an interpretation of what he's been told, or filling in the blanks of his knowledge, but he narrates events that happen to Arthur, Julia, Jimmy, and other characters. It was really interesting. Like, a passage might read as if it were in third person, until you saw a line like, "and he was thinking about me" or something. I ended up really liking that? Normally I loathe head-hopping/omniscient POV, but this wasn't either of those things. It was deliberate, and gave an added layer of lyricism and meaning to the text.
It was beautiful to watch them; freedom is an extraordinary spectacle.
Listened to the audiobook as read by Kevin Kenerly, which I think was my first experience with him. but he's quickly shot up my list of favourites. This was beautifully narrated from top to bottom. Again, I have to mention that opening chapter when Hall hears of Arthur's death, the way he did the lines 'Oh, my God my God my God my God my God, oh my God my God my God oh no no no, my God my God my God my God, forsake me if you will and I don’t give a shit but give me back my brother, my God my God my God my God my God!' Ooof. Right in my heart. This was just such an amazing text. It's very very heavy and dark, so mind that if you pick it up. There's also a lot of words I wish weren't used, some things I wish I could change and that probably would change if this was written in modern times. Nevertheless, a great novel. I really need to continue reading more Baldwin; his writing just fires me up.
Content warnings:
Spoiler
child rape, incestual rape, child sexual assault, racism, anti-Semitism, slurs (homophobic, anti-black, anti-Asian)For, without love, pleasure withers quickly, becomes a foul taste on the palate, and pleasure’s inventions are soon exhausted. There must be a soul within the body you are holding, a soul which you are striving to meet, a soul which is striving to meet yours.