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A review by saareman
The Man Who Lived Underground by Richard Wright
4.0
Underground Son
Review of the Library of America hardcover edition (Unpublished manuscript from 1941/42, first published April, 2021)
I read Richard Wright's autobiography Black Boy (1945/2020) in its 75th Anniversary expanded edition only earlier this year, thanks to a subscription to Shakespeare & Co.'s Year of Reading Lost Treasures. It was interesting to read there in the biographical timeline information about the lost, unfinished and/or unpublished early Wright works such as the first published story The Voodoo of Hell's Half Acre (1923) [no copies have been found of the newspaper where it was first printed], the unfinished early novels Little Sister (1939) & Black Hope (1941) and the early rejected novels such as Cesspool (1935) [later published as Lawd Today! (1963)], Tarbaby's Dawn (1937, still unpublished) and The Man Who Lived Underground (1941-42). As fate would have it, the latter has now been published in 2021.
The plot is easily summarized.
This newly published 2021 edition includes the essay Memories of my Grandmother which provides an extremely thorough background to the themes which are either overt or hidden in The Man Who Lived Underground. At first you can't even imagine how Wright's grandmother's religious faith would even relate to the novel, but Wright explains it with a great amount of detail. Even the fantastical story about someone living underground was based on a real-life incident in Hollywood, California that Wright read about in a True Detective magazine. The religious parallel to an innocent man condemned for crimes he didn't commit and who later 'rises' was the main metaphor that I drew from the story, but Wright's essay explains so much more about his grandmother's view of the world which was not 'real' to everyone else.
80 years later, this story still has the power to shock and disturb. The Library of America has filled a significant publishing gap in Wright's works by finally producing this excellent edition which includes Afterwords by Wright's daughter and grandson.
Trivia and Links
‘It couldn’t be more relevant’: the unseen Richard Wright novel finally getting its due by David Smith for The Guardian April 22, 2021.
Kenya Barris adapting The Man Who Lives Underground for Paramount by Lacey Rose for The Hollywood Reporter, June 23, 2021.
Review of the Library of America hardcover edition (Unpublished manuscript from 1941/42, first published April, 2021)
I read Richard Wright's autobiography Black Boy (1945/2020) in its 75th Anniversary expanded edition only earlier this year, thanks to a subscription to Shakespeare & Co.'s Year of Reading Lost Treasures. It was interesting to read there in the biographical timeline information about the lost, unfinished and/or unpublished early Wright works such as the first published story The Voodoo of Hell's Half Acre (1923) [no copies have been found of the newspaper where it was first printed], the unfinished early novels Little Sister (1939) & Black Hope (1941) and the early rejected novels such as Cesspool (1935) [later published as Lawd Today! (1963)], Tarbaby's Dawn (1937, still unpublished) and The Man Who Lived Underground (1941-42). As fate would have it, the latter has now been published in 2021.
The plot is easily summarized.
Spoiler
A Black-American handyman, Fred Daniels is arrested on suspicion of committing murders in a house nearby to where he works. He is brought to the police station and brutally beaten and interrogated until he signs a confession. Through a chance trip allowed by the police to visit his wife in the hospital (who is giving birth), Daniels manages to escape and hides down a manhole in the sewers. He lives underground for several days digging passages into basements and secretly observing events in various businesses. Having an eventual revelation he emerges from underground and turns himself back into the police in order to reveal what he knows but it all ends with fatal consequences. Meanwhile, the criminal behind the original murders had been caught and the police know that Daniels was in fact innocent.This newly published 2021 edition includes the essay Memories of my Grandmother which provides an extremely thorough background to the themes which are either overt or hidden in The Man Who Lived Underground. At first you can't even imagine how Wright's grandmother's religious faith would even relate to the novel, but Wright explains it with a great amount of detail. Even the fantastical story about someone living underground was based on a real-life incident in Hollywood, California that Wright read about in a True Detective magazine. The religious parallel to an innocent man condemned for crimes he didn't commit and who later 'rises' was the main metaphor that I drew from the story, but Wright's essay explains so much more about his grandmother's view of the world which was not 'real' to everyone else.
80 years later, this story still has the power to shock and disturb. The Library of America has filled a significant publishing gap in Wright's works by finally producing this excellent edition which includes Afterwords by Wright's daughter and grandson.
Trivia and Links
‘It couldn’t be more relevant’: the unseen Richard Wright novel finally getting its due by David Smith for The Guardian April 22, 2021.
Kenya Barris adapting The Man Who Lives Underground for Paramount by Lacey Rose for The Hollywood Reporter, June 23, 2021.