James Baldwin’s classic, Another Country, offers a brilliantly constructed view of the complicated relationships and emotions having to do with race and love.
I didn’t have high expectations for this book. Having been written in the 60s (for 2021, that’s a long time ago), I expected it to be drawn-out and wordy, overly detailed and slow. It seems I did not receive what I had expected.
Instead, what I got was a riveting novel, set in Greenwich Village, Harlem and France, exploring the deeply emotional connections between people bound by love and hate. The author of the book, James Baldwin, was depressed and in poor health at the time that he wrote this book, and it’s clear to tell once you read the book. It’s incredibly well-written and also very sexual.
The story is about many different characters — some of whom are not likeable, all of whom are not completely good people and do terrible things. One of the main characters is Rufus and the story revolves around the characters that are, for the most part, connected to him and an occurrence having to do with him. These characters love each other, hate each other, and have sex with each other throughout the course of the book.
From the very moment you open its pages, you are attacked with an intense array of emotional complexity — really, the driving force of this book is its emotional portrayals. It deep dives into race, sexuality, gender and love in a delightfully eloquent way. It’s so beautifully written and I urge you to read it.
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