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A review by sbelasco40
Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
5.0
When I was in high school, I had James Baldwin quotes written on the dividers of my notebooks. I had read GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN and GIOVANNI’S ROOM, and I felt somehow kindred to Baldwin, who had an unrelenting intensity simmering below the surface that the world did not know how to process.
I didn’t really learn about Baldwin’s civil rights activism until later, and it was then that I realized that he was far more than a talented and lyrical writer with a penchant for intense emotional catharsis. He was a prophet. This book focuses on that legacy, particularly in our current sociopolitical context, examining how despite the criticism he received, Baldwin was in fact just as radical as his contemporaries — and just as determined to dismantle what he referred to as “the lie,” that quintessentially American belief that mixes an ideal founding myth of equality with a society that is anything but. I listened to this on audiobook, which the author reads, and it is profoundly affecting. I’m sure it is just as effective on the page, however. This is definitely a book to read right now.
I didn’t really learn about Baldwin’s civil rights activism until later, and it was then that I realized that he was far more than a talented and lyrical writer with a penchant for intense emotional catharsis. He was a prophet. This book focuses on that legacy, particularly in our current sociopolitical context, examining how despite the criticism he received, Baldwin was in fact just as radical as his contemporaries — and just as determined to dismantle what he referred to as “the lie,” that quintessentially American belief that mixes an ideal founding myth of equality with a society that is anything but. I listened to this on audiobook, which the author reads, and it is profoundly affecting. I’m sure it is just as effective on the page, however. This is definitely a book to read right now.