Max Reddick, who is a talented 'black writer' in America but a literary genius in Europe, is trying to come to terms with his dilemma. Max is tired of having to accept that being black will always be the primary definition of his life - despite his marriage to a white woman, despite his literary talent and aspirations, despite his intellectual and social relations, and despite his 'escape' to the European cities of Paris and Amsterdam. At the end of his life, cut short by cancer, Max decides to question all the things that brought him to where he is today. John A. Williams has created in Max Reddick an unforgettable character: irascible, fiercely inteiligent, irredeemable, and honourable. The Man Who Cried I Am is a stunning chronicle of not only Williams's life but the lives of all black people who have refused to be victims: African-Americans who have had to leave their country to claim their individuality, intellectual independence, and rightful recognition, and who have always yearned to be 'home' but struggled to find such a place. With penetrating fictional portraits of Richard Wright and James Baldwin, among other historical figures, John A Williams reveals the hope, courage, and bitter disappointment of the civil-rights era. Infused with powerful artistry, searing anger, as well as insight, humanity, and vision, The Man Who Cried I Am is a classic of post-war American literature.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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About the Author
John A. Williams was born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1925. He has been a foreign correspondent for Newsweek as well as Professor of English at Rutgers University. Among his numerous awards are the American Book Award, the Richard Wright-Jacques Roumain Award, and the National Institute of Arts and Letters Award.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great book I only recently discovered,
By A Customer
This review is from: Man Who Cried I Am (Paperback)
A neglected classic by a writer who some consider equal to Ralph Ellison in importance. One fascinating aspect is its fictionalized treatment of some of the century's famous black literary figures. It's a portrait of the post-WWII-through-mid-sixties period as seen through the eyes of a black writer as he establishes a career as a novelist, journalist, and Presidential speechwriter in New York, Paris, Washington, D.C., and Lagos, Nigeria. The main character, Max Reddick, is shaped by anger, at the crux of which is indignation at the hypocrisy and hostility that black people and writers faced during this period. It's a historical novel which provides some insight into the social and political ferment of the sixties, and has an Afrocentric perspective that's somewhat reminiscent of Walter Mosley's work. It includes an intruiging fictionalized version of a mythic encounter between Richard Wright and James Baldwin ("Marion Dawes") in a Paris café, and according to James Sallis's biography of Chester Himes, it describes the essence of Wright's expatriate experience and his relationship with Himes. Ishmael Reed has said that the cartoonist Ollie Harrington is depicted, and although I didn't recognize him, Malcolm X is unmistakable and I suspect that "Time" Curry is modelled after jazz drummer Kenny Clarke, who was living in Paris at the time. According to the author's biography of Richard Pryor, Motown explored the possibility of buying the film rights to the novel as a vehicle for its star, Marvin Gaye, until the idea was abandoned in favor of Lady Sings the Blues.The story begins near the end as Max, who's dying of cancer, sits at an outdoor café in Amsterdam where he's come to investigate the mystery of the death of his friend, Harry Ames, "the father of black writers," a few days earlier in Paris. What he eventually discovers is mind-blowing. Throughout the novel, Max opines on a multitude of subjects like: Marxism, African independence and African attitudes towards Americans, sexuality and interracial relationships (he works past some of his homophobia too), the different styles of reporters from 5 major NYC newspapers, the theory of the rich president and other political theories, the "lie" of Christmas ("the rich man's chance to dissipate the image of Scrooge"), American cars (with their "long, buttock-smooth lines"), existentialism, and Alban Berg's atonal opera, "Wozzeck" (whose climax, a child's scream, punctuates Max's argument with his woman). Max interprets bebop's message as, "we can not be contained," and modern jazz becomes the avatar of his literary aesthetic: "He wanted to do with the novel what Charlie Parker was doing to music -- tearing it up and remaking it; basing it on nasty, nasty blues and overlaying it with the deep overriding tragedy not of Dostoevsky, but an American who knew of consequences to come: Herman Melville, a super Confidence Man, a Benito Cereno saddened beyond death."
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
i am a black man...,
This review is from: Man Who Cried I Am (Paperback)
and this is a great book...read this and you will see why the black man feels the way he does; why interracial relationships remain the enigma that no one wants to unravel and the the battles that black people fight in general...also read " one for new york," by williams
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Its good.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Man Who Cried I Am (Paperback)
One of the greatest novels of its time or anytime. It brought me to tears, jeers, and fears.
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