A review by samantha_shain
Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

1.0

This book was a disappointment. I felt that the threads were trite, the argument wasn't set up particularly well, and some points were repetitive. I also thought that the chapter on Baldwin's time in Istanbul reeked of orientalism (Glaude's wording was "elsewhere") - seemed like a ripe opportunity to talk about how Istanbul artists provided a fertile ground for collaboration and challenging/refining Baldwin's thinking rather than treating the city as an unexamined retreat. Glaude shied away from discussing Baldwin's queerness. I've read 5 or 6 Baldwin books and I was hoping for more context and framing for the oeuvre but instead, this put a few of his nonfiction books in dialogue with each other (which I appreciated) but almost entirely skipped his fiction work! Lastly, I was disappointed that Glaude provided a narrative bibliography rather than citations.