The Evidence of Things Not Seen [Paperback]

James Baldwin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1996

This edition of a classic work by one of America’s premier writers offers a new Foreword by Derrick Bell (with Janet Dewart Bell) to the 1995 paperback edition, and is as meaningful today as it was when it was first published in 1985. In his searing and moving essay, James Baldwin explores the Atlanta child murders that took place over a period of twenty-two months in 1979 and 1980. Examining this incident with a reporter’s skill and an essayist’s insight, he notes the significance of Atlanta as the site of these brutal killings—a city that claimed to be “too busy to hate”—and the permeation of race throughout the case: the black administration in Atlanta; the murdered black children; and Wayne Williams, the black man tried for the crimes. Rummaging through the ruins of American race relations, Baldwin addresses all the hard-to-face issues that have brought us a moment in history where it is terrifying to to be a black child in white America, and where, too often, public officials fail to ask real questions about “justice for all.” Baldwin takes a time-specific event and makes it timeless: The Evidence of Things Not Seen offers an incisive look at race in America through a lens at once disturbing and profoundly revealing.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The Atlanta child-murders case, in which Wayne Bertram Williams was arrested in 1981, is the focus of this short, maddeningly discursive book. At the suggestion of a Playboy editor, Baldwin visited Atlanta, attended Williams's trial and spoke to principals, but this book is not a work of reportage on the case against Williams. Rather, it is an extended essay on U.S. race relations. Often Baldwin is vivid and powerful, as when recalling the terrors of his Harlem boyhood and imagining poor black Atlanta children stepping into strangers' cars: "To be poor and Black in a country so rich and White is to judge oneself very harshly and it means that one has nothing to lose." Black Atlanta (its officials, the victims and the defendant) provides a point of departure for Baldwin's ruminations on deep and familiar concerns, but this book lacks the impact of his earlier works. October 31
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Baldwin, James. The Price of the Ticket: collected nonfiction, 1948-1985. Richard Marek: St. Martin's. 1985. 690p. LC 85-11733. ISBN 0-312-64307-1. $29.95. essays One would wish these two works by America's preeminent living black writer to stand as further testaments to his literary powers. But both are problematic. The nonfiction collection, inevitably, is uneven: some of the earlier pieces are pretentious and self-conscious, but most of the volume shows Baldwin's brilliance in both insight and phrasing. However, the fact that virtually all of it has appeared before in hardcover limits the collection's value for libraries that have copies of the individual works. Evidence of Things Not Seen is an account of the Atlanta child murders and the alleged murderer, Wayne Williams. In fact, though, it adds up to a garbled, meandering set of generalizations about blacks and whites. Baldwin assumes the reader's familiarity with the details of the Williams case and the trauma that struck Atlanta, while making annoyingly unsupported general statements. He also, almost incidentally, asserts that the case against Williams was not proved. The Price of the Ticket is recommended for libraries weak on Baldwin. The self-indulgent essay on Atlanta is useful only to collections that insist on having his complete works. Anthony O. Edmonds, History Dept., Ball State Univ., Muncie, Ind.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co (P) (January 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805001387
• ISBN-13: 978-0805001389
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,122,512 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Can People of Color Be that Cruel...?, September 20, 2000

By 

yygsgsdrassil "yygsgsdrassil" (Crossroads America) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Evidence of Things Not Seen (Hardcover)

This is a difficult read because Baldwin's thoughts come across like a man too perplexed to ask "Why?". And so there are many crosscurrent thoughts, parentheticals that are not in parenthesis, and sheer rage. The question: who could be murdering the children in Atlanta? And has the years of systematic oppression and racism made it possible for a black man to be become that cruel? Has the oppressed become the oppressor?

And I can understand Baldwin's great perplexity...he wants to point the finger at the American way of life. How years and years of being considered not human has affected the mindset of the average person of color. And of having to come through identity crises, legal crises, social crises to be confronted with who...? A person who is this insane enough to be killing innocent kids? Why have we struggled so much, Baldwin seems to be asking, to create this monster?

And so, it is another probing we received from the always philosophical, questioning, always provocative Baldwin.

Why read the book now? Well, although this murderer has been found and given punishment based on the fullest extent of the law, the questions remains.

How have we come to this?

4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Evidence of Things Not Seen, October 27, 2003

By 

"tmptmp" (Laguna Woods, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Evidence of Things Not Seen (Hardcover)

Searing, insighful essays written by a genius mind with a
writing style so filled with grace that it evokes tears.
Recognition fills every page. These essays should be
required reading in every American school. Anyone
interested in what a writer is, should be, can be, should
experience this Baldwin.

11 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars disappointing, January 20, 2001

By 

Charles Meredith (Seattle, WA. USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Evidence of Things Not Seen (Hardcover)

I was hoping for a factual/investigative account of the tragedy of the Atlanta child murders. Instead, this book seemed to be an essay written on the problems of racial injustice and ignorance in Atlanta, America, and the world. Nothing wrong with that, but then I take into account that the essay was written in a most meandering and disjointed fashion, full of incomprehensible references, with an overwhelming tone of arrogance. Baldwin is right, everyone else is wrong and to blame. Not persuasive, just a waste of time.