- Paperback: 197 pages
- Publisher: Potter Style; 1st Vintage International Ed edition (10 Oct 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0307275930
- ISBN-13: 978-0307275936
- Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 1.5 x 20.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 4,559,750 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
If Beale Street Could Talk
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
" One of the best books Baldwin has ever written- perhaps the best of all." - "The Philadelphia Inquirer"
" A moving, painful story, so vividly human and so obviously based on reality that it strikes us as timeless." - "Joyce Carol Oates"
" If Van Gogh was our nineteenth-century artist-saint, James Baldwin is our twentiethth-century one." "- Michael Ondaatje"
" Striking and particularly haunting. . . . A beauty, especially in its rendering of youthful passion." - "Cosmopolitan"
" A major work of black American fiction... His best novel yet, even Baldwin's most devoted readers are due to be stunned by it."
- "The New Republic"
" Emotional dynamite... a powerful assault upon the cynicism that seems today to drain our determination to confront deep social problems."
- "Library Journal"
" A moving, painful story, so vividly human and so obviously based on reality that it strikes us as timeless."
- "The New York Times Book Review" --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
" A moving, painful story, so vividly human and so obviously based on reality that it strikes us as timeless." - "Joyce Carol Oates"
" If Van Gogh was our nineteenth-century artist-saint, James Baldwin is our twentiethth-century one." "- Michael Ondaatje"
" Striking and particularly haunting. . . . A beauty, especially in its rendering of youthful passion." - "Cosmopolitan"
" A major work of black American fiction... His best novel yet, even Baldwin's most devoted readers are due to be stunned by it."
- "The New Republic"
" Emotional dynamite... a powerful assault upon the cynicism that seems today to drain our determination to confront deep social problems."
- "Library Journal"
" A moving, painful story, so vividly human and so obviously based on reality that it strikes us as timeless."
- "The New York Times Book Review" --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Product Description
In this honest and stunning novel, James Baldwin has given America a moving story of love in the face of injustice. Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin’s story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions–affection, despair, and hope. In a love story that evokes the blues, where passion and sadness are inevitably intertwined, Baldwin has created two characters so alive and profoundly realized that they are unforgettably ingrained in the American psyche.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
I LOOK at myself in the mirror. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
I LOOK at myself in the mirror. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
But can you understand the lyrics if you have not also lived the anguish?
Baldwin's novel is set in Harlem, in the `70's. It is a love story set in adversity, with Tish, a 19 year old pregnant, and her lover, 22 year old Fonny (Alanzo) unjustly imprisoned on trumped-up charges. The novel also involves the interactions of their two respective families to the principal characters' dilemmas, and it involves the efforts of well-intentioned people to free Fonny. There have been several excellent reviews already posted on the specifics in the novel, and it would be superfluous to duplicate them.
After the recent presidential election, the publishing industry certainly is missing a golden opportunity by not issuing a "Baldwin retrospective," along the theme of "how far have we come, and how far have we to go"? I read my first Baldwin, Another Country (Penguin Modern Classics) while working in the steel mills in Pittsburgh (yeah, that was a long time ago), and consider that book, along with Go Tell it on the Mountain (Penguin Modern Classics) to be the more powerful. So I am doing my own retrospective, and found this still to be excellent book on the second read, and it is Baldwin's best depiction of heterosexual love.
A particular passage in the book might very easily transcend the specifics of the black-white relationship, and it is one measure that we have not come far enough when I must still uses some dashes to "save sensibilities" (and avoid the review censor) when even Baldwin, in the `70's was able to write out the entire word:
"That same passion which saved Fonny got him into trouble, and put him in jail. For, you see, he had found his centre, his own centre, inside him: and it showed. He wasn't anybody's ni----. And that's a crime, in this fu----- free country. You're supposed to be somebody's ni----. And if you're nobody's ni----, you're a bad ni----: and that's what the cops decided when Fonny moved downtown."
Almost 40 years on, America has a black president, and some blacks have moved out of the underclass. But the demands for "cheap labor" have created another underclass, 12-20 million "illegal immigrants," existing in a nether world, awaiting their own James Baldwin to tell their anguish. Baldwin's works can easily be read as polemics on power relationships in society, transcending racial relations. And since the `70's there has been a significant increase in the concentration of power, certainly economic, but in other ways as well with the so-called "war on terror," which increasingly means that it is a crime if you're not somebody's ni----, whether your male, female, black or white. "Going to Meet the Man" still resonates.
Baldwin, like Richard Wright before him, eventually gave up on America, and found solace in France. His final resting placing is high in the hills overlooking the Mediterranean, at St. Paul de Vence. Outside the "norm" on two fronts, his color, and his sexual orientation, he did indeed live the anguish, and captured it powerfully in words. Much progress has been made on these two fronts that have been used to separate us from each other, but there has only been regression on the concentration of power front.
Baldwin remains an essential read for today.
(Note: Review first published at Amazon, USA, on June 29, 2009)
Baldwin's novel is set in Harlem, in the `70's. It is a love story set in adversity, with Tish, a 19 year old pregnant, and her lover, 22 year old Fonny (Alanzo) unjustly imprisoned on trumped-up charges. The novel also involves the interactions of their two respective families to the principal characters' dilemmas, and it involves the efforts of well-intentioned people to free Fonny. There have been several excellent reviews already posted on the specifics in the novel, and it would be superfluous to duplicate them.
After the recent presidential election, the publishing industry certainly is missing a golden opportunity by not issuing a "Baldwin retrospective," along the theme of "how far have we come, and how far have we to go"? I read my first Baldwin, Another Country (Penguin Modern Classics) while working in the steel mills in Pittsburgh (yeah, that was a long time ago), and consider that book, along with Go Tell it on the Mountain (Penguin Modern Classics) to be the more powerful. So I am doing my own retrospective, and found this still to be excellent book on the second read, and it is Baldwin's best depiction of heterosexual love.
A particular passage in the book might very easily transcend the specifics of the black-white relationship, and it is one measure that we have not come far enough when I must still uses some dashes to "save sensibilities" (and avoid the review censor) when even Baldwin, in the `70's was able to write out the entire word:
"That same passion which saved Fonny got him into trouble, and put him in jail. For, you see, he had found his centre, his own centre, inside him: and it showed. He wasn't anybody's ni----. And that's a crime, in this fu----- free country. You're supposed to be somebody's ni----. And if you're nobody's ni----, you're a bad ni----: and that's what the cops decided when Fonny moved downtown."
Almost 40 years on, America has a black president, and some blacks have moved out of the underclass. But the demands for "cheap labor" have created another underclass, 12-20 million "illegal immigrants," existing in a nether world, awaiting their own James Baldwin to tell their anguish. Baldwin's works can easily be read as polemics on power relationships in society, transcending racial relations. And since the `70's there has been a significant increase in the concentration of power, certainly economic, but in other ways as well with the so-called "war on terror," which increasingly means that it is a crime if you're not somebody's ni----, whether your male, female, black or white. "Going to Meet the Man" still resonates.
Baldwin, like Richard Wright before him, eventually gave up on America, and found solace in France. His final resting placing is high in the hills overlooking the Mediterranean, at St. Paul de Vence. Outside the "norm" on two fronts, his color, and his sexual orientation, he did indeed live the anguish, and captured it powerfully in words. Much progress has been made on these two fronts that have been used to separate us from each other, but there has only been regression on the concentration of power front.
Baldwin remains an essential read for today.
(Note: Review first published at Amazon, USA, on June 29, 2009)
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a beautiful story of love, love from the deepest part of a person, love that connects and allows for understanding of the frailty of the human condition. It is a story of strength, of failings and it must be read; it's honesty, depth and simplicity reveals a beauty, fear, longing, prejudice, sensuality and hope that is within us all.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
44 reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
A Love Story Among Racism in 1970s New York
28 Nov 2002
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I have been on a quest to read James Baldwin's book-reread those I read in the 70s and search out those I have missed. And what a fruitful treasure hunt it has been. The man was prolific and was a bonafide genius. I have always listed him as among my favorite authors but in the new millennium I have gained a new appreciation. I will venture to say he is my favorite writer of all time.
If Beale Street Could Talk is a lesson in the injustices of America that existed in the 70s In New York and is still indicative of that great city today. Trish and Fonny are young lovers who believe in the American dream of marriage and family. Best friends since they were young children, they are aware of the racism that surrounds them as being black in America but nevertheless believe they have what it takes to make it, their love.
That is until the day Fonny is arrested and thrown in jail for rape. What follows is a horror that tears at the reader's soul as we go through the pain and frustration with these characters of trying to prove a young black male's innocence, a near impossibility at this time period in our history. Trish is pregnant and working at a dead-end job but has the full support of her Renaissance family. Fonny, on the other hand, only has the support of his wearied father, who once owned a neighborhood business and now is subject to working at a job where he is made to feel less than a man. His wife is self-righteous and unapproachable while his grown daughters are frustrated "old maids" who with their imagined bourgeois airs have tried and convicted their brother.
This story is a testament to the human spirit, of how a people prevail against all odds, telling a story that is so familiar to the Blues the title of the book symbolizes. Another James Baldwin classic, another American classic, not to be missed.
Dera Williams
APOOO BookClub
If Beale Street Could Talk is a lesson in the injustices of America that existed in the 70s In New York and is still indicative of that great city today. Trish and Fonny are young lovers who believe in the American dream of marriage and family. Best friends since they were young children, they are aware of the racism that surrounds them as being black in America but nevertheless believe they have what it takes to make it, their love.
That is until the day Fonny is arrested and thrown in jail for rape. What follows is a horror that tears at the reader's soul as we go through the pain and frustration with these characters of trying to prove a young black male's innocence, a near impossibility at this time period in our history. Trish is pregnant and working at a dead-end job but has the full support of her Renaissance family. Fonny, on the other hand, only has the support of his wearied father, who once owned a neighborhood business and now is subject to working at a job where he is made to feel less than a man. His wife is self-righteous and unapproachable while his grown daughters are frustrated "old maids" who with their imagined bourgeois airs have tried and convicted their brother.
This story is a testament to the human spirit, of how a people prevail against all odds, telling a story that is so familiar to the Blues the title of the book symbolizes. Another James Baldwin classic, another American classic, not to be missed.
Dera Williams
APOOO BookClub
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
If Beale Street Could Talk . . . would America hear it?
13 Jun 2003
Format:Paperback
It is always a great disappointment and a tremendous joy to read Baldwin. The author's ability to bring the experiences of African American life and the circumstances under which those lives are lived here in America is a joyful, although difficult, reading experience. The disappointment comes in realizing that although Baldwin's canon of work spanned the late 1960's through 1970's, many of the conditions that he writes about so candidly still exist in 2003. The novel is, at its core, a beautiful love story. Not the kind where man meets woman, they fall in love, marry, have children and move into their lovely suburban home adorned with white picket fence and a two car garage. For that American dream was rarely the experience of many African Americans during the period in which the novel is set. In this depiction of the American dream, Tish and Fonny meet as children, grow up and in love, all the while aspiring to create a life together. Their hopes for the future are destroyed when Fonny is jailed for a rape he did not commit.
With classic Baldwin insight, the novel reveals how individual, systematic and internalized racial hatred ruined the lives of two lovers and their families. From the white cop that set Fonny up, to the court system that held him down (although he had an alibi) to the family that turned their backs on him, all contributed to his destruction. When Baldwin isn't rendering a scathing critique of America's racial injustices, he's rebuking the unquestioning manner that many African American's cling to religion in hopes of obtaining freedom here on earth.
Although at times it is difficult to distinguish the characters' voice from the author's, the novel truthfully depicts a fictional account of the realities of America's racism. I thought the ending was a bit fatalistic but decided that is exactly the point that Baldwin was making about the future of America in the absence of full equality for all of her citizens. "If Beale Street Could Talk" is as tragic as it is loving. It's a great read that serves to remind and encourage. Highly Recommended.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
It's All About the Love
3 Aug 2001
Format:Paperback
Langston Hughes wrote, "Folks, I'm telling you/Living is hard/Birthing is mean/So get yourselves/a little loving/in between." Hughes's poem kind of captures If Beale Street Could Talk.
The novel is told by Tish, a nineteen-year-old African American in Harlem in the 1970's. She is deeply in love with Fonny and is pregnant by him, but just about everything has gone wrong for the couple. Fonny is in jail because he has been falsely accussed of rape because he is black. Fonny, Tish, and Tish's family (plus Fonny's father) all love each other, and the family rallies behind Fonny to get him free. They must steal to raise money and even go on a trip to Puerto Rico to confront the woman accussing Fonny.
The characterizations in the novel are marvelous, and the storytelling is superb. Baldwin tells If Beale Street Could Talk in the most beautiful prose. It is almost musical. I also love his many allusions to music. If Beale Street Could Talk is an outstanding novel which can stand with almost any of the twentieth century. It can really be an important novel for teaching young adults about racism and the power of love between a family. If Beale Street Could Talk is a true classic.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
