Just Above My Head
by James Baldwin
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Book Summary Information
Author: James BaldwinEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-06-13
ISBN: 0385334567
Number of pages: 592
Publisher: Delta
Book Reviews of Just Above My Head
Book Review: Epic in its scope, human in its focus, and one of Baldwin's best
Summary: 5 Stars
In some respects, "Just Above My Head" seems to be a successor to "Another Country"; Baldwin has taken the sexual and emotional imbroglios of his earlier novel and reimagined them on a broader historical and geographical stage, with characters whose interwoven lives are no longer confined to the bedrooms of New York. Grounding the narrative is the relatively straight-laced character of Hall Montana, the anti-Baldwin of the book, whose tender, middle-class worldview serves as calm counterpoint to the troubled, explosive, even neurotic lives of Montana's friends and--most of all--his brother Arthur.
Hall's coolness is almost essential to the novel because of messiness of the whirlwinds that swirl around him, in the form of three disparate yet overlapping families: his own childhood household, which provides a supportive environment for the fledgling musical career of his brother Arthur; the Millers, Baldwin's most brilliantly conceived dysfunctional family, whose exploitation of their coddled child-preacher daughter, Julia, all but insures their demise; and the Trumpets of Zion, four Harlem-based teenagers who form a gospel music quartet led by Arthur and who each meet a sordid and tragic end (murder, drug addiction, insanity, and alcohol-fueled death). Framing the novel and connecting the three groups is Hall's family in the "present day" of the 1970s, from which Hall looks back at how this motley crew lived through the turmoil of the civil rights era and the chaos of their own lives. We know at the outset of the book what happens to each of the main characters; we just don't know how they got there.
While the novel is ostensibly about Arthur, whose singing career peaks and wanes through the vagaries of international fame and notoriety, the most memorable and interesting character of the novel, aside from Hall himself, is Julia. One of the most worldly, enchanting women in modern fiction, Julia endures (and survives) early adulation, childhood incest, and prostitution to become an endearing suburbanite. Arthur, on the other hand, seems idealized at times--a stoic, somewhat jaded celebrity whose enigmatic aura proves hopelessly alluring to his friends and family and to his two lovers: Crunch, one of other members of the quartet, and Jimmy, Julia's underappreciated and seemingly unloved brother.
For its epic sweep, episodic structure, and epigrammatic wit, "Just Above My Head" ranks among the best of Baldwin's novels. While "Go Tell It on the Mountain" is still praised for its lyricism and "Giovanni's Room" is beloved for its passion, this book--his longest by far--combines both qualities on a vast social and historical panorama that never loses its focus on the lives of the very authentic human beings conjured out of the tumult of Harlem's streets. In his last great novel, Baldwin once again proves that the political is the personal.
Summary of Just Above My Head
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 the 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.Classics Books
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