James Baldwin: A Biography

by David A. Leeming

“The most revealing and subjectively penetrating assessment of Baldwin’s life yet published.” — The New York Times Book Review. “ The first Baldwin biography in which one can recognize the human features of this brilliant, troubled, principled, supremely courageous man.” —Boston Globe

James Baldwin was one of the great writers of the last century. In works that have become part of the American canon— Go Tell It on a Mountain , Giovanni’s Room , Another Country , The Fire Next Time , and The Evidence of Things Not Seen —he explored issues of race and racism in America, class distinction, and sexual difference.

A gay, African American writer who was born in Harlem, he found the freedom to express himself living in exile in Paris. When he returned to America to cover the Civil Rights movement, he became an activist and controversial spokesman for the movement, writing books that became bestsellers and made him a celebrity, landing him on the cover of Time .

In this biography, David Leeming creates an intimate portrait of a complex, troubled, driven, and brilliant man. He plumbs every aspect of Baldwin’s his relationships with the unknown and the famous, including painter Beauford Delaney, Richard Wright, Lorraine Hansberry, Marlon Brando, Harry Belafonte, Lena Horne, and childhood friend Richard Avedon; his expatriate years in France and Turkey; his gift for compassion and love; the public pressures that overwhelmed his quest for happiness, and his passionate battle for black identity, racial justice, and to “end the racial nightmare and achieve our country.”

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History, Race, Politics, African American, Biography Memoir

464 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

aka David Adams Leeming

Reviews

[Theo Logos · Rating 4 out of 5]

David A. Leeming was one of James Baldwin’s closest friends. He was among the select group who cared for him in his final illness and was there at the end. The intimacy of his close friendship with Baldwin informs this biography. Baldwin gave him full access to his papers, and conducted several interviews in anticipation of this book. This, together with Leeming’s engaging prose style makes this book the definitive biography of James Baldwin.

Many conventional, birth to death biographies start slowly, as the aspects of the life in question that interest us come significantly later in the lifetime. Not so here. Baldwin’s creative work was all essentially autobiographical — he mined his life and experiences, sometimes only thinly veiling them, for his fiction. So, Baldwin’s parents, his siblings, his younger self are all important to the story that captures our interest, which means that this biography hits the ground running rather than dragging for several chapters.

A prior knowledge of Baldwin’s writing will enhance your experience reading this book. As mentioned, Baldwin’s writing — both his fiction and non fiction — was largely autobiographical — there isn’t a clear demarcation between the two. Leeming has drawn deeply on Baldwin’s work, related it to his life as lived, and explains one through the other. He goes into great detail on all of Baldwin’s writing, something that can increase your insight into works that you have already read. It is not absolutely necessary to have read him to appreciate this bio (I suppose that it could serve as an introduction to Baldwin’s work) but I feel that a close familiarity with the writings will deepen the experience of reading this book.

[Chrissie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author of this book, David Leeming (emeritus professor of English at the University of Connecticut), was a close friend to James Baldwin (1924- 1987) for twenty-five years. They first met in 1961 in Istanbul where Leeming was teaching at Robert College. Back in New York, beginning in 1963, Leeming worked as Baldwin’s personal assistant, dealt with correspondence and did lecture research. Returning to Istanbul in 1965, he, Baldwin and Baldwin’s younger brother, David, lived together for a year. Leeming and Baldwin maintained a close friendship throughout their lives, writing and frequently visiting each other. During the last days of Baldwin's life at St. Paul de Vence, France, Leeming was one of the few there caring for Baldwin along with his brother David. Leeming's relationship with Baldwin was long, intimate and full of understanding. This is reflected in the writing. However Leeming does not whitewash Baldwin. Both criticism and praise are presented in full measure. Their long friendship allows us to better understand the emotions and thoughts of Baldwin, and it is a reason to choose this biography of the man.

So why not more stars? Quite simply because I would have preferred more editing. Parts are repetitive. The book moves forward chronologically; every book, essay, play, as well as Baldwin's venture in film and poetry is detailed. Much of Baldwin's writing is semi-autobiographical. Much can be seen as metaphors of his life philosophy. Repeatedly people and events in his life are used as characters in his writing. This does become a bit repetitive. Some issues are covered only briefly and occasionally I wanted more information, for example concerning Baldwin’s scoliosis.

Race, sexuality and love are the central components of this book. Baldwin was sexually active. He spent his life searching for love, honest communication and true commitment, between individuals and between races. For me, excessive use of a term ultimately leads to loss of its significance. Baldwin spoke of love so often and in so many situations and in so many ways, that for me it began to be washed of its value. This is in no way a complaint of the book; I am simply noting the effect this had on me.

As an older man, Baldwin remarked, "It took so much time to learn so little." This struck home to me. His constant effort and battle to dig down deep to a person’s innermost feelings and thoughts, his introspection, fascinated me. He saw the femininity in men as well as the white in Blacks and the black in Whites. I like his search for what binds all of us together - Blacks and Whites, men and women, young and old. Baldwin's words are eloquent, intimate and lay bare his soul. His passion is felt.

In this book we meet many of Baldwin’s contemporaries, authors and artists many of us have read about: Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Amiri Baraka, Malcolm X, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Jack Kerouac, Martin Luther King Jr. and Beauford Delaney. I am naming but a few. Baldwin highly appreciated Henry James’s writing.

The audiobook is narrated by James Patrick Cronin. I think his voice wonderfully reflected Baldwin’s voice. There is an intimacy to it that reflects the intimacy in Baldwin’s character. It was always clear and easy to follow, but the French pronunciation was off. There are many French words since Baldwin spent so much time there. Such an interesting person – born in Harlem, so American, and yet not American too. He lived many years as an expatriate. Now I am going off on a tangent, so I will stop here.

This is a good book, and it is worth reading. If you have read all of his writings you will probably appreciate it even more than I did.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can see why people consider this the go to biography. It is really good and gives context. Leeming's writing is totally engaging. I learned quite a bit.

[Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Baldwin has become a man I deeply admire. I admire his writing and I also admire his philosophy.

Here Leeming helps us follow young to old Jimmy 'keeping the faith' always, through being a preacher, a student, a writer, an activist, a commentator on life, he was a witness and a keeper of the faith always. An imperfect man but such a big heart, such clarity, such trueness.

"She was a constant reminder to him of the necessity of “keeping the faith,” of not drifting onto the all-too-tempting road of racial or personal hatred."

of his mother

Leeming was very very good in giving us public Jimmy, I would have loved to have more of the intimate Jimmy.

A marvellous read with my Baldwin companion Maya.

Reading with Maya Dec 2015

[Daniel Chaikin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this to get me excited about reading Baldwin this year and learn more about what kind of person he was. And it did get me excited at first because Baldwin is fascinating. He was that kind of energetic personality that can never settle down. It seems he always felt to the need to be bold, and do something slightly unexpected, and somehow to hover on the edge of some kind of self-destabilization, while at the same time always craving a stability. When he wrote, it was from his life. It seems his personality, boldness and incisive self-analysis provided the power behind his fiction and essays. And, on top of all that, he was black and gay in an electric time and threw himself into the midst of the Civil Rights movement.



It curious because my view of Baldwin isn't as a prominent Civil Right leader, but as curious highbrow writer I didn't know much else about. It's not like I ever thought MLK, Malcolm X and James Baldwin in same formative way. And there was something different about him. He was raised in Harlem, became a preacher at 14 (significantly influencing his writing and speaking styles), but his life led him to a kind of bohemian 1940's Greenwich Village and then to a Paris of expats, hanging out with a more liberal and largely white crowd. He would be mocked as not being black enough, and it seems he was always writing to ear of the liberal white (and very Jewish) crowd. That is to say he was both prominent and on the edge.

(I should note I'm liberal, white and Jewish, so maybe I'm the right kind of reader.)

Leeming met Baldwin in Istanbul in the mid 1960's, at the height of his fame after [The Fire Next time]. He become close with Baldwin and his milieu in Istanbul, and later worked for Baldwin organizing his papers. So, he writes from some intimacy and knowledge about his writing and world, including some anecdotes on their relationship. After he wrote a letter to Baldwin complaining about how his lifestyle was hurting him and his writing, Baldwin wrote him back, where, paraphrased by Leeming, "He declared...I must understand that disorder was in a sense a necessary aspect of his life as a writer. He could not afford to be tamed." He draws a life of Baldwin through a collection of small details, not so much bringing his subject to life as letting the reader construct it from the information. Every book Baldwin published gets a chapter, and every moment in his and his various intimate relationships, many platonic, gets covered. Sometimes chapters end in what practically amount to lists of various people he met while in one city or another. It's treasure trove of compressed information and oddly works to construct this unusual personality. And, of course, it's a little overwhelming. Instead of rushing out to Baldwin's first book, I need a little break to recover.

Recommended to those interested in Baldwin and willing the put in the time this book may take.

-----------------------------------------------

4. James Baldwin : a Biography by David Adams Leeming
published: 1994
format: 420 page hardcover
acquired: library
read: Jan 1-19
time reading: 18 hr 3 min, 2.6 min/page
rating: 4

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best author biographies I have ever read. If I love or admire an author, and there is a biography available, I like to read it. Often I follow the author's life as I read their works. I did that with John Steinbeck and discovered that I enjoyed learning what was going on in his life as he wrote each novel.

I was going to follow that plan with James Baldwin but I got so involved with his personal story that I could not stop. David Leeming's way of revealing Baldwin is respectful and sensitive. He traces the man's development from an impoverished Harlem kid, son of a preacher, through the lucky breaks that gave him chances to build on his natural intelligence and improve his writing skills as well as figure out his sexual orientation and his place in the world. From all of that experience he became one of the leading Black writers of the 20th century.

Authors are not always "nice" people leading steady, secure lives. They are often driven by certain demons and James Baldwin was no exception. He suffered emotionally, he blazed with righteousness in many public situations, and I feel he created one of the most profound understandings of race relations in America ever.

I have read four of Baldwin's novels so far: Go Tell It on the Mountain, Giovanni's Room, Another Country, and If Beale Street Could Talk. Reading the biography was like taking a class from a really great professor. It deepened my understanding of those novels, both as to how he came to write them and some of the literary aspects I had either missed or not fully grasped.

David Leeming is a professor of literature. He was also a close friend of Baldwin's from 1961 until the author's death in 1988. Baldwin authorized Leeming to write his biography and left all his papers to him.

Now I look forward to reading the rest of James Baldwin's novels, stories and essay collections while having this book as a resource. I especially liked learning about Baldwin's relationships with Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and many other civil rights leaders, through which I got an excellent overview of the Black race's ongoing fight for freedom. That was James Baldwin's fight, his life and his obsession.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

In preface, let me say that I learned a good deal more about James Baldwin in David Leeming’s biography than I thought probable.

For instance, I learned that early in his writing career Baldwin’s ability to accurately portray life in the Jim Crow South was called into question because he was, by birth, a “northerner.” I learned that his writing style was mocked by Alex Haley (“I like those Baldwin sentences with all them commas 'n'shit”). I learned, not surprisingly, that Baldwin's work was often considered immoral and offensive. I learned that Baldwin had both public and private tussles with Langston Hughes over which of them wrote “real books” and which of them wrote “piles of slogans and manifestos.” I also learned that James Baldwin thought that racism was so infused into white culture, so endemic to America, that many white folks were oblivious to its existence; a state of insensibility that he politely termed “White Innocence.”

My issue with author David Leeming’s book stems not from his source material but rather from his complete lack of objectivity. Leeming’s intimate friendship with Baldwin is evident from the start and as a result his biography often comes across as both tabloid and cliché. 3 stars.

[Joe T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author David Leeming worked for James Baldwin as a secretary/assistant and because of that this book gives us an insider's perspective into the works and life of the prophet that America produced. This is a great book.

[Mehrsa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was so hard to finish and such a slog and I don't know why it had to be. Baldwin is so freaking interesting and his work is just so beautiful. This book was dry and it seemed to flatten him as opposed to bring him to life, which is why you read biographies.

[Abigail Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

frightful. intense. really, really intense

[KOMET · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Baldwin (1924-1987) was one of the foremost writers and thinkers of the 20th century. He first came to my attention in the autumn of 1979, when, I, then a 10th grader, was assigned to read one of his novels, Go Tell It on the Mountain, in English class. In the intervening years, he has seldom been far from my thoughts of literature's role in society, confronting and speaking the truth about the ongoing corrosive impacts of racism in the U.S. and worldwide, challenging that racism, Baldwin's battle for Black identity, and his lifelong struggles to "end the racial nightmare and achieve our country." Yet, in all that time, I had never sought out a biography about this richly talented writer and social gadfly. That is, until I picked up this book from the local library a short time ago.

Baldwin was born in Harlem, which at the time of his birth, was a largely mixed area of New York City, with fairly even numbers of African Americans and whites living side by side. He never knew his real father. But when his mother married David Baldwin, a laborer (with whom she would give birth to 8 other children), Baldwin fully accepted him as his father, though theirs was not an easy relationship. The elder Baldwin had come up to New York from the South, with a deep distrust of white people. He struggled to find a place for himself and his family in society, and went on to serve as a preacher with his own church. For Baldwin, his father came to typify the psychologically damaged and embittered African American man whom the larger society denigrated and marginalized at every turn, and sought to destroy should he become a threat to what was regarded as "the normal order of things" in Jim Crow America.

From early childhood, Baldwin was recognized by some of his teachers (including the first African American principal in New York City at his first school) as having a talent for writing, and he was encouraged to write. Baldwin would also develop into a voracious reader, with Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities and Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin being among his favorite books as a preteen. It was at this time that he made the acquaintance of Orilla "Bill" Miller, a young white woman schoolteacher from the Midwest who would come to play a significant influence in Baldwin's life, taking him to see plays, movies, and encouraging his writing talent. Baldwin himself gave Miller partial credit in that he "never really managed to hate white people."

Later, in junior high school, Baldwin would have Countee Cullen, one of the celebrated poets of the Harlem Renaissance, as one of his teachers. Baldwin would later attribute to Cullen his latent desire to live in France - Cullen had been a teacher of French at Baldwin's junior high school, as well as an advisor to the school's English department. After high school, Baldwin applied for and was accepted into DeWitt Clinton High School, a mainly white and Jewish high school in the Bronx that instilled a desire for high achievement among its student body. While there, Baldwin struck up a friendship with Richard Avedon, who was later one of America's top photographers.

It was during his student days at DeWitt Clinton that Baldwin experienced struggles with his sexuality (he was attracted to men) and the impacts of racism in his daily life. It was the latter that would prove difficult for him to come to terms with following his graduation from high school (1941) and some of the wartime work he performed as a laborer in New Jersey, working closely with white colleagues, many of whom had come from the Deep South in search of work, who resented Baldwin for not showing what they regarded as "proper servile behavior" for an African American. Baldwin also struggled with his religious faith, which led him to become a preacher for a time. He ended up being fired from the job he had in New Jersey and returned to Harlem to work in a meat packing plant. Indeed, Baldwin would bounce around from job to job from his late teens into early adulthood, fearing that he might end up like his father (who had died in a sanatorium from tuberculosis when he was 19), eking out an aimless existence.

From Harlem, Baldwin went to Greenwich Village where he made the acquaintance of Beauford Delaney, an African American modernist painter 23 years his senior. He helped Baldwin to see that an African American man could make a living as an artist. He would serve as a mentor to Baldwin, who at that time in his life, had suffered his first nervous breakdown and had taken up drinking. The Harlem of his childhood, which was for him a "renaissance city" had metamorphosed over time in a very hard place for African Americans in which to live, with its temptations of drugs, crime, and alcohol within easy reach.

Baldwin studied acting for a short time at The New School, where he made the acquaintance of Marlon Brando, with whom he would strike up a lifelong friendship. He also had a succession of sexual relationships with men (ultimately unsatisfying emotionally) and a few with women. All the while, Baldwin kept writing. In 1945, he started a literary magazine with the help of the wife of a former DeWitt Clinton schoolmate. This was also the time when Baldwin met Richard Wright, arguably then the premier African American novelist. He encouraged Baldwin with his writing after Baldwin had shared with him a manuscript he had been working on, which would later become Go Tell It on the Mountain. Though later the two men would have a falling out, it was Wright who helped Baldwin win a Rosenwald Fellowship, which facilitated his move to Paris in 1948.

The book goes into considerable detail about Baldwin's expatriate life in France (which lasted a decade) during which Baldwin came into his own as a writer, thinker, and critic. He cultivated a wide variety of people into his life, not all of whom had his best interests at heart. The author (who first met Baldwin in Turkey in 1961, where he was working as a teacher; later the 2 became lifelong friends) shares with the reader the full extent of Baldwin's involvement in the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement from the late 1950s (when Baldwin made his first visits to the segregated South; though fearful of going to the South, he felt he had to experience it first-hand to better understand the sting of overt racism/white supremacy there), his friendships with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers, and Malcolm X and on through the 1960s.

What most impressed me about James Baldwin was his unwavering commitment to social justice, to speaking truth to power, challenging the status quo through his novels and plays, and his frustrated ambition to work in films. (Baldwin was a lifelong movie fan.) This book showed me that there was much more to James Baldwin than I had previously thought.

What made me a bit sad is that, from reading the book, I don't think that Baldwin truly found the personal happiness he sought most out of life. Yet, he was at times honest enough with himself and some of his friends and associates in conceding that he wasn't always an easy person to live with. Baldwin's life was that of the artist who braved the slings and arrows society heaped upon him in his pursuit of truths that he believed could help make possible a better understanding among people - and ultimately, an enlightened humanity where racism and injustice would have no place.

[Shane · Rating 3 out of 5]

An important writer of our times, James Baldwin was saddled with the triple burden of being the adopted ugly duckling child in a household of nine children, a black in America at a time when racial tensions were at their highest, and a bisexual man at a time when sex between men was still a criminal offence.

Exceptionally bright, puny, effeminate, ugly, gifted with the power of oratory, Baldwin escaped the ghetto of Harlem, his step-father’s church, and the responsibilities of the eldest breadwinner son by heading to Greenwich Village in New York City and then onto France (and later in life he added Istanbul to his list of semi-permanent homes). He didn’t suffer the rejection of the novice author for too long and was successful in his twenties with his masterpiece, Go Tell it on the Mountain, a semi-autobiographical account of his life at the age of 14. This work and the status it conferred opened him to the expatriate community in France and to a multitude of contacts in the literary, theatre, fine art and cinema fields around the world. These contacts included Marlon Brando, Maya Angelou, Henry Miller, Eartha Kitt, Burt Lancaster, Beauford Delaney, the list goes on. Despite this level of acknowledgement, Baldwin always lived on the outside and was full of rage against the injustices done to his people; he considered himself a witness, advocating the rights of the black man in his home country. He had many broken relationships and always craved the love and stability of a happy marriage and a family, something he never achieved. Also dreamed up but never obtained was a strong father figure, and all the surrogates who came and went in his life never measured up. Some periods of his life were drowned in depression and he made several, albeit half-hearted, attempts at suicide.

A key member of the civil rights movement, he constantly travelled back and forth to America, espousing love as the way to solve America’s race problems. He posited that the white man was no more free than his black brother. “The white man will be free only when he let’s go of oppression. The black man bears the sexual paranoia of white people.” He supported Malcom X and Martin Luther King but wasn’t enamoured with more radical groups like the Black Panthers. He fought against ideology, just as he fought against his church, claiming it was just another form of entrapment.

As his books, novels, essays and short stories, began to make him a major voice in the literary firmament of the time, he branched off into theatre and film, but never quite hit the level of success he enjoyed with his writing in these two other art forms. Part of the problem was that he intruded in his theatre and film productions, interfering in the casting (which often resulted in his friends and relatives being included in the productions), and fighting with directors and producers over creative control. He had a large entourage of hangers-on who were regularly in attendance at his various homes where debates, drinking, smoking, and fighting would go on late into the night - grist for his literary mill. “Conflict in life is inevitable. There is no love without conflict.”

On the relationship side, despite having many male and female lovers, the love of his life was Lucien Happersberger, himself a bisexual, who unlike Baldwin, had a bias towards women over men. Lucien betrayed Baldwin many times and Baldwin kept forgiving him until the damage was extreme and irreparable. Later in life, an enlightened but hungry Baldwin took on a string of young male lovers in an attempt to replace Lucien. In addition to spending extravagantly on Lucien, and on his many family members, Baldwin had no handle on his finances and was constantly running short of money, often being rescued by influential friends who gave him funds or a place to hole up and write until the money would start to flow again.

The author of this biography, David Leeming, worked as a secretary for Baldwin, on and off through the years. Much of this biography is culled from Baldwin’s journals and letters, and therefore certain sections of the book read like a chronological run down of events without getting deep into the motivations and feelings of the characters involved, because Leeming himself was absent. Leeming however had the good fortune of being with Baldwin during the last days of his life while domiciled in France, and that portrayal is poignant.

It is ironic that such an accomplished writer, and such a brave and generous soul who was never starved for an audience, had to end his days feeling like the loneliest man on the planet.

[Kristianne]

A beautiful portrait of a beautiful man.
Baldwin explained to Leeming that "He could not afford to be tamed. The writer's job was to confront life in all its complications." This is an account of how Baldwin did exactly that and maintained a profound love for life and for the world, even despite the inequalities in it. In a short film made by Sedat Pakay in Istanbul Baldwin says: "...I've love a few men and a few women...love comes in very strange packages...the trick is to say yes to life."

[Arthur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! It took me a month to read this book. Says something about my life, I think, right now. Just this morning, a few minutes ago, I finished the last pages--and, I confess, with tears in my eyes. What a great book and what a powerful story. Jimmy B lived his whole life in the midst of the race struggle and, at all points, for better and worse, bore that struggle in his own life while he was a witness to the truth of that struggle for all of people. He knew everyone and, while controversial and well known, was always an outsider who bore witness to the sad tragedy of our continued divide--that divide which recent political events prove is still deep and wide. I remember years ago reading a quotation that goes something like this: Civilization is thin membrane stretched over unspeakable chaos. Feels like the membrane is tearing, huh? Sometimes it feels as if we have come so far and made so little progress. Yet, even as I want to always celebrate the progress, I regret and lament the distance we’ve had to travel--and how many died along the way--and am fearful that it is far too easy to slide back.

At any rate, for anyone wanting to understand the struggle through the lens of one man’s highly engaged life, this is a great read. Well, it's a great read for anyone. Everyone is in it; every major and many of the minor actors on the civil rights stage are here. He knew them all. And his writings bore witness--he thought of himself as prophet. The interesting thing is that even though he lived so fully in the midst of the struggle, he was more of an outsider--his blackness, his sexuality, his personal and religious demons, his sense of the importance of his own voice--these all separated him out and made him “other.” Made him stranger. Made it nearly impossible for him to settle down, yet so prolific. He was complex and troubled and divided within himself; generous and selfish of his own worth--easily wounded and readily forgiving.

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

The subject is fascinating, but the book itself is very dry. Going into the book, I was familiar with some of his fiction, some of his essays, and some of his famous public appearances, like the debate with William F. Buckley Jr., but I was unaware of the extent to which Baldwin was ingrained in the culture. The amount of recognizable names that pop up throughout this book at times gives the feeling of reading a celebrity memoir... Nina Simone, Marlon Brando, Miles Davis, Harry Belafonte, even Rip Torn.

I highly recommend Baldwin's work, and I'm happy that there's still plenty of it I haven't read yet. But I don't recommend this biography, which is long on facts but short on the beautiful writing and heart that made Baldwin incredible.

[Maya · Rating 4 out of 5]

"One must say Yes to life and embrace it wherever it is found—and it is found in terrible places…. For nothing is fixed, forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out."

Quote taken from Nothing Personal.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave this biography about James Baldwin 5 out of 5 stars. Stop telling me that I’m too harsh a critic when I just have standards.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

I should preface this review by acknowledging that I love James Baldwin's writing. I love it so much I want to write 'lurve' instead of love and, in deference to Baldwin, I also want to chuck in a 'baby' (as in, 'Baby, I lurve Jimmy B').

Even if you don't feel that way you should read this book anyway. You should read this book, because, as I was raving to a friend, it's like attending a party with all of the leading (and some minor) lights of the civil rights movement and the arts in the sixties. Malcolm is in one corner with his crew, Martin is another corner with his people, Huey, Elderidge and Stokely are throwing daggers, Norman Mailer is drunk and about to be thrown out, Elijah Muhammad is in deep conversation and sounds like a fortune cookie, Belafonte and Poitier are singing calypso off-key while Brando watches on, Maya Angelou flits through free of the cage, the Kennedy boys are the balcony smoking. Hell, even Lando is there! And at the centre of it all is Baldwin, alternately 'still screaming' and smiling that enormous, knowing, cheeky grin.

You should also read this book because it is an interesting study in identity. The author doesn't shy away from acknowledging the darkness in Baldwin and, as he highlights, acknowledging also Baldwin's contributions to rendering identity politics complex by his often non-hegemonic intersectional identities and his razor sharp awareness of then-contemporary American cultures. It is a biography that highlights that the personal is indeed political and cannot be divorced from a full understanding of the individual. Don't get me wrong, this is not a perfect book; the author was very close to Baldwin and some things are surely left out or made less than what they were, and some of the textual analysis of Baldwin's works can drag, especially if you have read them before and knew the context. But Baldwin himself comes through this book and is, I find, enthralling.

[Celine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always knew Baldwin was tortured and complex, but I'm not sure I completely understood just how much so he was until this biography. I appreciated the way Leeming situated each piece of Baldwin's work in the story of life. It made me want to re-read many of Baldwin's pieces with the backdrop of what was happening at his life as context. Leeming also compellingly captures the weighty mantle of witness that Baldwin felt following the murder of Dr. King and Malcolm. I appreciate James Baldwin so much more after reading this, which, I suppose, is what all good biographies aim to achieve.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Looks like this excellent biography of Baldwin is due to come out in a new edition in 2015. I read this 17 years ago and it's hard to imagine someone doing a better job of covering this American novelist who never quite seems to be rated as highly as he should be. Of the American novelists writing in those post-war years Baldwin remains my favorite.

[Douglas Noakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Racism is based on fear, that when the white racist confronts the black man, what he sees is not the individual man but a “nightmare” of his own creation”
― James Baldwin.

James Baldwin would have been one of the Prophets if there had been an American secular Bible. He began his public life as a teenage preacher at a church in Harlem, a position that only widened the conflict with his stepfather, a minister who denied him the love that James sought all his life. Baldwin left the church formally in his adult years, but he never really stopped speaking to Americans about the issues that drive us away from simply loving and accepting our neighbor.

He preached that race was a construct, that sexual love between two people was not something to judge, and that we needed to face the real history of the United States, our ugly national past that couldn't be overcome by changing our laws, as hard as that continues to be, but changing our hearts.

Baldwin's biographer here, David Leeming, was a long-time friend who first met the author of THE FIREiNEXT TIME, ANOTHER COUNTRY, and GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN in Istanbul in the early 1960s. Twenty-odd years later he was with him at the end of his life in his place of self-imposed exile in France. Leeming tracks his friend in his years as a vocal celebrity and controversial Jeremiah-like renown author. He embraced Malcolm X, Meager Evers, Martin Luther King, and the Black Panthers with equal energy and vigor. That many of the leaders were gunned down shows how brave a man Baldwin was, not only writing about liberation but also going into Birmingham, Alabama, to observe and report on the Civil Rights struggle.


He debated against bigotry on television and in the forums of Oxford and Berkeley, and over and over reminded liberal white America it had such a long way to go to see his people fully and completely.

One thing this great biography isn't: a hagiography. Baldwin's messy personal life is also on display here as well as the plethora of hangers-on that he had to be rescued from by his brother David Baldwin and from true friends like David Leeming. This biography made me feel closer to Baldwin with all his eloquence, vulnerabilities, and amazing strength.

[Chris Osantowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish every biography was this well written. The author captures the personhood of Mr. Baldwin in stunning clarity and compassion. His reluctance to accept labels and his humanist zeal are in full display and I actually feel like I know this beautifully complex man after reading this book.

I loved that the author used the motif of prophet to describe Mr. Baldwin. Jeremiah (the Bible guy) was rejected by many of his own people and lived as an outcast whose message was rejected because it was too difficult to hear. Mr. Baldwin experienced much of the same. I wish I could say that James Baldwin was born a few decades early, and would be received in modern times with the love and dignity every human deserves, but I would be wrong. We aren’t there. We haven’t built that world that Jimmy envisioned, but we can still try.

I’m going to drink a glass of whiskey to this beautiful, eccentric, exuberant, humanist teacher we can all learn from. And for god sake people let’s try to live like this life is short.

[Theodore · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book when my girlfriend (now wife) gave it to me as a Christmas gift in 1996. Listening to it after almost 30 years I can say that I’m still married to the love of my life and we’ve raised four beautiful children. Baldwin wrote a lot about love and race for which he got a fair amount of flack from both black and white people. He believed in racial integration- an idea we’re still working on today. He was friends with some amazing people. Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis, Nina Simone just to name a few. His record collection was digitized into a 30 hour playlist.

[Char · Rating 4 out of 5]

me sobbing my eyes out (while driving) over his death like this man hasn’t been dead for decades

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exceedingly detailed biography that could have benefited from being significant editing. The level of detail is exhaustive to the point of redundancy. The general tempo of Baldwin's life after moving around from the US, to France, to Turkey and back, only to drift to another location for peace and quiet to write, is repeated ad nauseum. Certainly these events impacted his life and writing, but, barring a very direct influence on one of his works (which are the chapter titles for this book), many of these events could have been cut out. That being said, anyone hungry for this level of minutiae can certainly find it here.

[Christine Liu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’d been meaning to read more James Baldwin for years, so when I picked up his first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, at the beginning of this year, I hadn’t formally planned on taking a deep dive through his entire oeuvre. But that’s what ended up happening. The more of his work I read, the more I wanted to immerse myself in his world and understand how he came to be the writer he was.

This biography written by David Leeming, a personal friend of Baldwin’s who knew him well and was with him when he died, is often considered one of the most definitive ones. It lays out the details of his life and his work in chronological order from birth to death, so it makes great supplementary reading if you’re undertaking a complete retrospective through Baldwin’s writing career. It offers a lot of detail and insight into what was happening in his life as he was working through each of his books and plays and provides excellent context for how he grew as a writer as the world was changing around him.

The book is very well written as a whole, but the parts I found most engaging were the ones where we see Leeming take on a more personal tone through his own experiences working with Baldwin. I loved his recounting of the first time they met in Istanbul, and as he chronicles Baldwin’s last days, you can tell there was a lot of love between them. I still have three novels, two plays, and various essays to get through for my Year of Baldwin, and this is a resource that I will definitely be turning to again and again as I do so.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides as much as a critical primer of Baldwin’s writing as it does his life. Having already read many of his works, I still found this to be an exhilarating read from which I learned a lot and appreciated even more this man who I love.

I’ve been putting off writing a review of this book because I feel I have too much to say about it, and I don’t have the time and headspace to review my extensive margin notes, compile all the important Woolfian nuggets for my future reference, and most importantly, to offer its worthy praise. I read this book slowly, over the course of several months, really cherishing it as I slid it into my suitcase while traveling, my shoulder bag while commuting; moving it from coffee table, to bedside table, to front porch. (It was particularly meaningful to read this in part while I was abroad, being able to consider this distinctly American figure while spending time in another culture, like Baldwin considering the distinctly American problems that preoccupied his lifetime, while living abroad.

Baldwin is so generous, sharing so much of himself with us. As Baldwin’s longtime companion, Leeming is also generous in extending their relationship as well as his own insights to us. Leeming is modest and balanced when offering his own interpretations alongside that of others’. In fact, Leeming deftly handles a lot of literary criticism himself, and the magnetic motion between Baldwin’s life and his works powers the book. Leeming is honest, offering us unblinking accounts of Baldwin’s less flattering attributes and episodes as well.

So there it is—my woefully inadequate account of this brilliant book. Maybe I’ll have the wherewithal to revisit this review again and offer more. Or after the next time that I undoubtedly read this in the future.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful

I'm not black or gay, but this biography, written with clear eyes but also much love by one of Baldwin's close friends, who lived with him and worked for him, resonated with me. James Baldwin, with his rickety private life, his depression, and his rage, was a great man who devoted his life to the quest for love , and to making sense of his cultural inheritance. An extraordinary man. Look up the YouTube videos -- his speech to the Cambridge Student Union when he took part in a debate with the right wing commentator Buckley (Baldwin got a standing ovation), or the interview with Mavis ?? when one of his plays opened in London. A great man....

[Jeff Bursey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like the biography on Ellison, this takes a searching look at Baldwin (more searching in both cases than, to my mind, the 2-volume bio of Bellow), and is informed by long personal contact that doesn't descend into hagiography. The style is unobtrusive. Worth reading for people who know and don't know Baldwin's work due to the historical context provided.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

"He would elaborate on this theme in a later interview with Julius Lester, when he suggested that to say a "new language" was needed was the same as saying a "new morality" was needed. It was time to redefine morality in the area of race, of sex, of identity. It was necessary to reconsider the meaning of 'love in a consumer society.'" (p. 356)

"In an interview in the Washington Post he spoke with some disdain of Nixon and Watergate as indications of the falseness of the American myths of "success" and integrity. How could black people be surprised by Watergate, he asked. It was 'just one more rather sordid scandal in a rather predictable history.'" (p.327)

"Love is at the heart of the Baldwin philosophy. Love for Baldwin cannot be safe; it involves the risk of commitment, the risk of removing the masks and taboos placed on us by society. The philosophy applies to individual relationships as well as to more general ones. It encompasses sexuality as well as politics, economics, and race relations. And it emphasizes the dire consequences, for individuals and racial groups, of the refusal of love." (p.123)

"Son, don't try to get away from the things that hurt you. The things that hurt you -- sometimes that's all you got. You got to learn to live with those things, use them." Luke from The Amen Corner. (p.379)

"He had once been converted to a religion in which salvation was initiated by the fear of eternal damnation. Now he knew that salvation could not be based on fear. Real salvation 'connects, so that one sees oneself in others and others in oneself,' and it clears the way to 'that which is greater than oneself.' The simplistic salvation preached by ideologues and fundamentalists was delusory and dangerous: 'Complexity is our only safety and love is the only key to our maturity. And love is where you find it." (p. 369)

"In Atlanta he visited the monument to Martin Luther King -- a monument 'as absolutely irrelevant as the Lincoln Memorial.' Making monuments was 'one of the ways the Western world has learned... to outwit history [and] time--to make a life and a death irrelevant... There's nothing one can do with a monument.' Monuments belonged to the "white aesthetic," were the sculptural equivalent of "white English." (p.354) ----- Remembering Irwin's line on the dead of WWI: [Looking at War Memorial] "That's why. The dead. The body count. We don't like to admit the war was even partly our fault because so many of our people died. And all the mourning has veiled the truth. It's not lest we forget, but lest we remember. That's what this is about . . . the memorials, the Cenotaph, the Two Minutes' Silence. Because there's no better way of forgetting something than by commemorating it." (p.28 – H.B//Bennett film script.)

"An interviewer for 'Penthouse' asked him if he had any hope for the future of his nation. He answered that he was 'a lover and therefore an optimist... the trick is to love somebody... If you love one person, you see everybody else differently.' (p.329)

A holiday gift from Meghan on her New York City trip, 2016. Purchased at McNally Jackson.
Thank you Meghan. <3