Just Above My Head is
James Baldwin's sixth and last novel, first published in 1979. He wrote it in his house in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France.
Plot introduction
The novel tells the life story of a group of friends, from preaching in
Harlem, through to experiencing "incest, war, poverty, the civil-rights struggle, as well as wealth and love and fame—in
Korea,
Africa,
Birmingham,
New York City,
Paris."[1]
Characters
Arthur Montana, a gay man who becomes the world-famous "Emperor of Soul". He started out in a quartet, the Trumpets of Zion.
Hall Montana, Arthur's brother, a married man in his forties.
Ruth Granger, Hall's wife. Hall met her at a fundraiser.
Guy says he was a French soldier in the
Algerian War.
Literary significance and criticism
It has been suggested that the novel links the trope of the internalisation of history to what
W. E. B. Du Bois defined as the African American's "longing to attain self-conscious manhood".[4]
It has been suggested that Crunch subscribes to the idea propounded by
Auguste Ambroise Tardieu and
Cesare Lombroso that homosexuality was inscribed upon a homosexual's flesh,[5] when he wonders, "if his change was visible".[6]
Just Above My Head is
James Baldwin's sixth and last novel, first published in 1979. He wrote it in his house in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France.
Plot introduction
The novel tells the life story of a group of friends, from preaching in
Harlem, through to experiencing "incest, war, poverty, the civil-rights struggle, as well as wealth and love and fame—in
Korea,
Africa,
Birmingham,
New York City,
Paris."[1]
Characters
Arthur Montana, a gay man who becomes the world-famous "Emperor of Soul". He started out in a quartet, the Trumpets of Zion.
Hall Montana, Arthur's brother, a married man in his forties.
Ruth Granger, Hall's wife. Hall met her at a fundraiser.
Guy says he was a French soldier in the
Algerian War.
Literary significance and criticism
It has been suggested that the novel links the trope of the internalisation of history to what
W. E. B. Du Bois defined as the African American's "longing to attain self-conscious manhood".[4]
It has been suggested that Crunch subscribes to the idea propounded by
Auguste Ambroise Tardieu and
Cesare Lombroso that homosexuality was inscribed upon a homosexual's flesh,[5] when he wonders, "if his change was visible".[6]