A review by pnwbibliophile
Another Country by James Baldwin

dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Baldwin is a monolith of Black and Queer literature. His work warrants a read simply because he led US society to consider sexuality, racism, and interracial relationships in his novels at a time where these were contentious topics to much of the public. I thoroughly enjoyed this glimpse into the artistic community of Harlem/NYC at the time. The dialogue was also brimming with immersive colloquialisms and AAVE, which Baldwin captured brilliantly.

This was a fairly brutal novel and I didn’t love it, but I do appreciate it. Baldwin existed in a different time. Though it’s difficult to read the misogyny in this book, Baldwin was born decades before the Women’s Rights Movement while I was born decades after with the privilege of it’s lessons. While I was put off by all the violence and mysogynistic language inflicted on the female characters, this felt like an accurate portrait of New York City in the 1950s, even if my modern sensibilities elicited red flags left and right viewing a more flawed US on the cusp of the Civil Rights Era. It’s possible to not love something and still gain meaningful insights from it.

I’ll also be honest and say that I only passively engaged with this audiobook and zoned out for much of the last third so perhaps missed some things. This isn’t so much because Baldwin is a bad writer but because I often struggle to connect with literature pre-1970s. Glad I read it but would not read it again.