Customer Reviews

A Rage in Harlem

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Whether or not you're a fan of detective mystery/caper/police procedural fiction--writer Elmore Leonard is considered a living master--there's a treasure of good reading and fantastic storytelling in store when you crack open one of Chester Himes' so-called "Harlem domestic" series. Take the case of the first one, A RAGE IN HARLEM, one hell of an introduction.

Working stiff Jackson may be the squarest square in Harlem. He's gullible, fearful, a bit superstitious and dense, but not stupid--he's Everyman as a member of the black workingclass. He also has one overriding passion: his woman, Imabelle, a down-home high yellow knockout with a shadowy background.

Plucked clean of his savings by black grifters running an old con game, deep in trouble with his boss and his landlady, Jackson's more worried that Imabelle's somehow in peril. He enlists his estranged street-wise scam artist twin, Goldy, to help find and rescue her. Meanwhile, hard-rock Harlem police detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson, themselves death on con artists, are also hunting the gang, wanted for murder in Mississippi. They use Goldy and Jackson to corner the gangsters in their hideout when one throws acid in Coffin Ed's face, triggering a whirlwind of bloodletting and madcap pursuit. The action is fast and furious, building to a spine-tingling climax and wry, incredulous close.

Black crime fiction didn't begin with Chester Himes, but nobody has done it better. He gives you more than your money's worth: snappy pacing, rapid-fire action. His short, staccato paragraphs are like cinematic quick cuts, accenting details of character, scene, mood. The range of detail--how people look, what they wear, eat, think; where they come from; particulars of location--is meticulous. You SEE and SENSE this world, this Harlem perhaps removed in time (but not in essence) from today, clearly. One thing I definitely like and respect is that his characters SOUND like real people; his black characters, particularly, sound like black folks I've known all my life.

This points up Himes' (who considered himself a serious artist and social critic) point of view--to try to be accurate and fair. To try, even within the constraints of a genre he scorned--pulp fiction--to turn the ugliness and suffering, the "absurdity" (as he himself put it) of life in a Northern black ghetto into a work of certain beauty and truth.

Well, beauty, or aesthetic, may seem too large a notion for a paperback detective novel, but Himes' sheer craft pulls it off. The book is well-written, richly character-driven, suspenseful. It's alternately side-splitting funny and bone-chillingly gruesome, a thriller you'll probably finish in one sitting. When you do, you'll probably want more. Fortunately, there is.

This is classic noir crime fiction. The plot revolves around a perennial patsy named Jackson, his fortuitously named girlfriend Imabelle, and their involvement in a get-rich-quick scheme. If you've read any crime fiction, you know how well the scheme works out. Pretty soon, Jackson is left to survive by his wits, which is unfortunate, because Jackson ain't exactly overflowing in the "wits" department. Even more unfortunately for Jackson, the con men, brothel owners, drug addicts and policemen surrounding him are not only smarter than he is, but more violent as well -- particularly Himes's recurring detectives, "Coffin Ed" Jones and "Grave Digger" Johnson.

This book has great characters and vivid prose. I highly recommend it.

This novel is sort of a "Sting" in Harlem. Instead of Redford and Newman, Himes populates his story with a cast of characters that are, well, characters. The plot is great -- you are always wondering what is going to happen next. However, the humor is the best. My wife and I read the book out loud and there were a couple of spots where we had to stop because we were laughing so hard.

The novel is set in 1950s NYC -- read "real cool." There are some pretty interesting asides about what it was like to be black back the. However, this is not a preaching book. Himes just provides context.

Himes is at his best in descriptions. Colors leap out of the text. Walks -- always with a wiggle or gait -- stride through the book. Keep an eye out for a wonderful passage that uses the arrival of a train to describe the conditions of Harlem.

"A Rage In Harlem" is definitely one of Himes best crime novels. I read it many, many years ago under the original title "For Love of Immabelle." The action is written in vivid detail, and each character is well defined. Himes had a superb talent for writing dialogue that moves the story along. The book is entertaining, suspenseful and fun, which blends well with the fact that it is also very violent.
If you saw the 1991 movie under the same name with Forest Whitaker, it is interesting to see how hollywood revised the book's characters, and ending, while sticking with the basic plot.

A tough story? Sure. Packed with callous characters acting brutally most of the time? Certainly. Still, I never found the story to be really disturbing, maybe because there's such a perfect balance between the brutality of the life in the black ghetto and the dark humour people still live with, together with a sort of strong positivity coming from Jackson, the naïve main character. It's a perfect balance, hard to achieve.

The plot may be a bit unlikely, as some reviewers pointed out, but Jackson's naivety is also uncommon. Again, the balance between this uncommon quality and the incredible string of events happening in such short time, turns the plot into something surreal, and that's why it worked for me. After all, isn't Mr Clay, Jackson's employer, who talks to him turning his back, napping on the couch - clearly a surreal character?

Grave Digger and Coffin Ed do shine from the first moment they appear on the page. I wouldn't be able to say what they have that all the other characters don't (and you'll find a number of noticeable characters in here), but they do have that `something'. Many of the characters have a strong personality, still Coffin Ed and especially Grave Digger - who appears longer in the story - have something more. Maybe it's that mix of recklessness and morality that it's hard to find with this depth and this complexity. I understand why Himes then shifted his attention to them.

The plot is enjoyable on the whole, but there are episodes that really grab a reader. What to say of Coffin Ed unwittingly knocking out Grave Digger while being blinded by acid, desperately calling for him, fearing he's being killed? Or Billie offering money to Grave Digger if he leaves Coffin Ed's attackers alone, so not to ruin her business... which Grave Digger never takes as an option?
But my absolute favourit is the episode of the approaching train, a long, emotional episode: the train approaches the station and shakes everything on its way, tracks, houses, the very air, all the characters. It also shakes the story in a way that I hadn't expected. Powerful.

I recently had the chance to ask Walter Mosley if he had considered writing a series of historical mysteries set in Harlem. He answered that he wouldn't because others, foremost among them being Chester Himes, had already done so and done it far better he could hope to. 'A Rage in Harlem' is the first of a series of eight books known as the Harlem Cycle starring detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson. It had been on my TBR list for a long time so, armed with Mosley's recommendation, I tracked down a copy and read it. It was time well spent. The description that Himes is to Harlem what Chandler is to Los Angeles is right on the mark.

The action starts on page one and doesn't let up. Jackson, a gullible mark if ever there was one, gets fleeced while trying to 'promote' 150 10-dollar bills into 150 100-dollar bills, ends up losing his money, his job and Imabelle, the woman he loves and swears has been kidnapped (despite evidence to the contrary). The hapless Jackson seeks the help of his twin brother Goldy, a drag queen posing as a Sister of Mercy who supports his heroin habit by selling tickets to heaven. Joined by Grave Digger and Coffin Ed, they set out in search of Imabelle and the increasingly violent hucksters. What follows is a madcap mix of comedy and searing violence. I couldn't put it down and fully intend to read more of this series.

This was a shot in the dark after hearing about another writer. Smokin ghetto action, great characters, linguistically exciting and fast and fun. I'm going to read a few more of his stories.

This story was Chester Himes intro to the 2 detectives "Coffin Ed" Jones (Count Off!) and "Grave Digger" Johnson (Straighten Up!). The plot was thought out carefully. Characters came alive, and each scene was fully picturesque. This wasn't only a rage in Harlem, but it was a mess of a crime with Johnson's dumb love for Imabelle. This story is going to keep you in awe, keep you laughing, but at the same time saying "What a Mess In Harlem".

Chester Himes was born in Jefferson City, Missouri, in 1909 - November 12. His first novel, "If He Hollers, Let Him Go", was first published in 1945. "A Rage in Harlem" was first published in 1957, four years after he'd moved to Paris. He'd intended the book to be called "The Five Cornered Square" - and it has, at times, been published under that name. However, in France it was called "La Reine des Pommes" and it went on to win Grand Prix de Littérature Policière.

The book's hero is Jackson, an innocent and rather gullible character, who works for an undertaker called H. Exodus Clay. As the book opens, he's gathered together every last cent he can muster - $1500 in $10 bills - believing he's found a genuine get-rich-quick scheme. Imabelle, Jackson's girlfriend - has found a man called Hank who swears he can raise the $10 bills to $100 bills. (Hank won't be doing it for free, naturally : he'll be taking a ten per cent cut). Unsurprisingly, given that it's a scam, things go horribly wrong : the oven blows up, the money disappears - along with Hank, his sidekick Jodie and Jackson's girlfriend Imabelle - and a US Marshal conveniently appears just at the wrong moment. Jackson is able to pay the Marshal off, though he has to steal a wad of cash from his boss to do it. It's obvious to everyone bar Jackson he's been scammed, and that the alleged Marshal was part of the plot. Desperate to pay off his debts - he's a God-fearing man, despite being so willing to flirt with forgery - he's determined to regain his money and rescue Imabelle. (He refuses to believe that she mightn't actually want to be rescued). Luckily, since he hasn't got a clue where to start, he's got a very streetwise brother called Goldy - who makes his living collecting alms while disguised as a nun.

"A Rage in Harlem" was the first in Himes' Harlem Detective series - though Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, the lead characthers of the series, only appear in this book as supporting characters. (H. Exodus Clay, Jackson's boss, also further appearances). Jackson, though, is unquestionably the book's hero and proved a likeable character. (I enjoyed Goldy's appearances a little more, admittedly). A very good book overall : pacey, with plenty of humour - though there are a couple of very dark scenes too. (The one scene that really stood out involved "the scream of the locomotive asthe train thundered past overhead"). Certainly recommended.

"Below the surface, in the murky waters of fetid tenements, a city of black people who are convulsed in desperate living, living like the voracious churning of millions of hungry cannibal fish. Blind mouths eating their own guts. Stick in a hand and draw back a nub.
That is Harlem."

And that is Chester Himes' Rage in Harlem. It's only on a few occasions however that the author turns a dark reflective look at the nature of lives and crime among the predominately black population of the town during the 1950s, but when he does, he sums up the whole seething, dangerous frenzy of the place to perfection, where a blind eye is turned to what your neighbour is doing, as long as it doesn't interfere with whatever petty criminal enterprise you are up to. For the most part however, Himes doesn't set himself up above it all, looking on with a dispassionate eye - Rage in Harlem is right in there in the middle of it all, down and dirty in the streets, the drug dens, the whorehouses, the gambling joints and with the bizarre characters that loiter with intent on its dark, filthy, dangerous streets.

Rage in Harlem is the first of the author's novels to introduce his two famous detectives, Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, but the story is principally - and very amusingly - seen through the eyes of one poor, innocent fool of a black man, an undertaker's assistant, who gets caught in one of the oldest scams in the book by a group of Mississippi conmen who promise to convert the fifteen hundred bucks he has raised (borrowed and stolen) into fifteen thousand. Not only does Jackson lose his money, he loses his girl and is forced to seek the help of his brother Goldy, a scam merchant himself who dresses as a nun, calls himself Sister Gabriel and sells tickets to heaven to pay for his drug habit. Things however go from bad to worse as Goldy, also a part-time stoolpigeon, puts the aforementioned two detectives on the trail of the conmen.

There are no niceties about Chester Himes' writing - other than turning in a beautifully appropriate metaphor like the one quoted above when the occasion warrants it - but rather good, solid pulp descriptions of violence and bloody murder, the whole thing peppered with earthy dialogue that captures the nature of the characters and the escalating series of events that ensue. And, as the plot outline might suggest, there is a lot of humour in the situation that develops, but Himes always has a sympathetic eye for the human weaknesses and failings of his characters. This is classic pulp crime fiction and hugely entertaining.