Black Boy is a non-fiction novel about the life of Richard Wright's life. It tells about his life as a child in the South, and his adult life with the Communists in Chicago. There is a lot of action and things going on, but there is a lot of time explaining how he felt during this time, and with him not doing anything. I did like this book. It was written very well. I believed he conveyed his emotions well. The only thing is, this type of book, is not one of my favorites. Despite this, I still enjoyed it, and if you really like autobiographies, or black history books, then this is a must read. ( )

Richard Wright is famous for his novel, Native Son, which is a classic of American realism, made it to the Modern Library’s list of Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century, and was the first Book of the Month Club title by an African-American author. His autobiography – at least part of it – is an acclaimed account of life in the Jim Crow South.

Only the first part of Richard Wright’s autobiography, Black Boy, was published contemporaneously with his finishing it in 1945. The second part, American Hunger, was not published until 1977.

Understandably. The Black Boy section of his autobiography tells the story of Wright's childhood in the Deep South in the early part of the 1900s. Born on a plantation, abandoned by his father, and raised by a passel of relatives, his was as racist, poverty-stricken, and generally grim a childhood as could be imagined.

But American Hunger, the second part of his autobiography is all about Wright’s life as a Communist. Not a sympathetic, leftist intellectual of the 1930s, but a full-fledged, card-carrying Party member and true believer. No wonder he could not get this part of his story published in the 1950s. It would have been scandalous. Now, after the horrors of Stalin are known and the Soviet Union has disappeared, his story is historically notable, but borderline ludicrous.

What is worse is that Wright does not delve into the ideas that made him a Communist, which might have been interesting. He provides only one glowing summary of his fervent belief that Communism was the only solution for mankind, that the world would be in awe of the success of this system based on self-sacrifice, and that Europe would be unable to stand up to the military might of the Soviet Union. He offered this as an introduction to his description of the “glory” of the Soviet-style show trial of one of his Comrades.

The rest focuses on the in-fighting among Party members. Wrights whole point seems to prove that he was the better Communist than the hacks running the Party. He recounts the maneuverings among factions that led to his election as the Party Secretary of his division, detailed conversations with Party sub-officials questioning his loyalty, and his ultimate break with the Party – not over ideology, he insists, but tactics. All this is as tedious as listening to the office receptionist relate the details of her long-standing feud with the HR department.

The Black Boy section of Wright’s autobiography is a must-read. The American Hunger section belongs, like the bankrupt ideology that inspired it, in the dustbin of literary history.

Also posted on Rose City Reader. ( )

Black Boy is an autobiographical novel about the life of Richard Wright, a poor black child growing up in the American South in the early 1900's. Broken into two parts it, in great detail, outlines the struggles of poverty, fear, hatred and hunger, first in the South and then later when he moves to the North. Part two of the book, which also chronicles Richard's involvement with the Communist party, was originally cut from the book as a condition of being included in the Book-of-the-Month-Club.
Black Boy is an interesting read and well written however the more reflective tone that it takes in the second part can, at times, become tedious especially when thinking about how Richard, by allowing the second half of the book to be cut, did in fact what he frowns upon his fellow social class members and writers for doing. If at all possible it is worth viewing the coorespondence between the Book-of-the-Month, Dorothy Canfield Fisher and Richard Wright, which is based at Yale University (the Beinecke) as it gives a lot more insight into the reasons behind the situation and the pressure that Richard Wright was under in relation to his decision. ( )

This is a great book, about and African American young man journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South.

I've taught this book for seven years in my English classes. It's a great account of African-American life from the 1910s-1930s. Wright refuses to submit not only to white racial oppression, but also to the oppression within the black community to go with the flow. The themes of searching for one's identity and the power of language in Richard's life are fantastically detailed. Wright unwittingly wrote a primer on Existentialist thought as well. He illustrates Sartre's "Hell is other people" perfectly. I always have students who say that the book is just Wright complaining about his life. What they fail to see is that, unlike my students, Wright doesn't just complain. He takes his destiny in his own hands and refuses to be denied. It is a novel about choices and actions in the face of a society that says "sit down and be quiet." It should be required reading in America. ( )