James Baldwin: Early Novels & Stories (LOA #97): Go Tell It on the Mountain / Giovanni's Room / Another Country / Going to Meet the Man: 2 (Library of America James Baldwin Edition)

Here in a Library of America volume edited by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison is the fiction that established James Baldwins reputation as a writer who fused unblinking realism and rare verbal eloquence. His first novel Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953) tells the story rooted in Baldwins own experience of a preachers son coming of age in 1930s Harlem. Ten years in the writing its exploration of religious sexual and generational conflicts was described by Baldwin as an attempt to exorcise something to find out what happened to my father what happened to all of us. Giovannis Room (1956) is a searching and in its day controversial treatment of the tragic self-delusions of a young American expatriate at war with his own homosexuality. Another Country (1962) a wide-ranging exploration of Americas racial and sexual boundaries depicts the suicide of a gifted jazz musician and its ripple effect on those who knew him. Complex in structure and turbulent in mood it is in many ways Baldwins most ambitious novel. Going to Meet the Man (1965) collects Baldwins short fiction including the masterful Sonnys Blues the unforgettable portrait of a jazz musician struggling with drug addiction in which Baldwin came closest to defining his goal as a writer: For while the tale of how we suffer and how we are delighted and how we may triumph is never new it must be heard. There isnt any other tale to tell its the only light weve got in all this darkness.LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing and keeping permanently in print America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date authoritative editions that average 1000 pages in length feature cloth covers sewn bindings and ribbon markers and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.