Just above my head [Hardcover]

James Baldwin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1979

James Baldwin first wrote about homosexuality in his famous early novel, "Giovanni's Room". Here, he brings homosexuality and race together in the story of the great gospel singer Arthur Montana. Arthur was found dead in the basement of a London pub at the age of thirty-nine, yet he lies on in this memoir. Written by Hall, his brother and manager, it is in part a subtle and moving study of the treacherous ebb and flow of memory. Set against a vividly drawn background of the civil rights movement of the sixties, "Just Above My Head" explores how Arthur discovers his love for Jimmy - 'with his smile like a lantern and a voice like Saturday nights' - and portrays how profoundly racial politics can shape the private business of love.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"If Van Gogh was our 19th-century artist-saint, James Baldwin is our 20th-century one."
--Michael Ondaatje

"The work of a born storyteller at the height of his powers...  glimpses of family life in Harlem, rapturous music-making in the churches, moments of uneasiness in even the most casual meetings between whites and blacks--scenes that Baldwin seems preternaturally gifted in understanding."
--The New York Times Book Review

"A fine novel...it seems impossible for [Baldwin] to write with anything other than eloquence.  His great and peculiar power is to re-create the maddening halfway house that the black man finds himself in late-twentieth-century America."
--The New Yorker --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the Publisher

The stark grief of a brother mourning a brother opens this novel with a stunning, unforgettable experience. Here, in a monumental saga of love and rage, Baldwin goes back to Harlem, to a church of his groundbreaking novel Go Tell It On The Mountain, to the homosexual passion of Giovanni's Room, and to the political fire that enflames his nonfiction work. Here, too, the story of gospel singer Arthur Hall and his family becomes both a journey into another country of the soul and senses--and a living contemporary history of black struggle in this land.

"A work of passion... Glimpses of family life in Harlem, rapturous music-making in the churches, movements of uneasiness in even the most casual meetings between whites and blacks--scenes that Baldwin seems preternaturally gifted in understanding."--The New York Times Book Review.

"His great and peculiar power is to re-create the maddening halfway house that the black man finds himself in in late-twentieth century America." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 597 pages
• Publisher: Dial Press (1979)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803748671
• ISBN-13: 978-0803748675
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,799,713 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wish I could rate it 6 stars, January 10, 2000

By 

Frank Cunat - See all my reviews

This review is from: Just Above My Head (Mass Market Paperback)

This is one of the best written, most beautiful books I've ever read. If any one book could be said to distill James Baldwin's entire life, this could be it, at least among his fiction. The sense of love, compassion, and empathy Baldwin has for his characters is tangible. Many of the passages are poetic in their power; Baldwin excels at finding the nuance, the meanings in a gesture, a glance, a touch. Baldwin was a black gay man but I believe that in this book he has transcended both race and sex, and is writing about something more basic and yet more complex: relationships between *human beings*. For those who grew up in the 1960s and 70s, it's impossible to overstate the impact Baldwin had on many of our lives (even in my case, and I'm Caucasian).

I was lucky enough to hear Baldwin lecture 20 years ago; Just Above My Head had been out for about a year and I was able to get my copy autographed and personalized. He was as arresting a speaker as he was a writer.

In the short list of the most deeply felt, most moving, most powerful books written in the 20th century, this has to come near the top.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Baldwin captures the essence of human emotion., January 27, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Just Above My Head (Mass Market Paperback)

When I read this book for the first time I was so deeply moved that I was left ranting and raving to all of my friends who share a passion for great American literature. Baldwin's even-handed, almost objective analysis of the American preoccupation with race and human sexuality leaves the reader with a changed perspective on being American. Too many books have love and politics central to their themes, however Baldwin takes this overworked subject matter and creates something truly original and timeless

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Literary Wonder, March 5, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Just Above My Head (Paperback)

I first came across the book as a teenager, rooting around amidst the books my brother left behind. I was just coming out then, and decided to try and read it. Much of it flew over my head then, but upon returning to it as an adult, I found much here to treasure. The characters not only inhabit the pages, but leap right off them at times, and the reader feels like he would want to sit in a room with them, talk with them, laugh with them and grieve with them. As a black gay man, it's nearly an autobiographical read, showing how far ahead of his time Baldwin was. It definitely comes highly recommended from this reader.