Chester Himes (1909–1984)

A much-needed change of pace for me, and a book which (unusually for me) I finished in a day. Himes wrote the novel while in Paris, escaping from his bitter experience of racism in '50s Hollywood. He was asked to write a crime novel for the French market, and choose Harlem as his setting, despite never having lived there, as he felt it would be most recognisable to his audience as a tough African-American neighbourhood.

Judging by the book's longevity in print, Himes did his job well, and I show more certainly enjoyed immersing myself into his milieu of petty criminals, con artists, casual murderers, crooked cops and tough detectives. Himes's darkly humorous tone is just right, and he delivered a couple of shock twists that had my jaw dropping.

I'm definitely up for exploring the other books in the series. A solid 4/5🌟 show less

It begins with an albino giant. And a dwarf.

And I still don’t understand how the drugs were up the rabbit’s butt! How did it poop? "...he removed a small square of adhesive tape covering the rabbit's rectum, then withdrew a long rubber plug with a tiny metal handle like a sink stopper." "He squeezed the rabbit's stomach and a small aluminum capsule popped out. He put the capsule into his pocket a restoppered the rabbit." WTF???

“Even cotton got rotten with age and corn got too wormy to show more shuck.”

“TWO HARLEM DETECTIVES SUSPENDED FOR BRUTALITY”. Of course those two are Grave Digger and Coffin Ed. Suspended “…for punching a mother-raping pusher in the guts…”!

My favorite part of this book is reading about Coffin Ed going about his vengeance when he believed that Gravedigger had been killed! He was a machine of death! Coffin Ed armed and out for revenge is a scary man! When told that he had blood on his shirt cuff, he replied, “Yeah…and there’s going to be some more.”
“He was in it; he was like the airplane over the middle of the ocean that had passed the point of no return.””He had left a trail of hysteria, screaming jeebies, knotty heads and bloody noses.”

"People think we enjoy being tough, shooting people and knocking them in the head." Count this reader as one of those people! :-)

"With eleven people whom we know of already dead from this one caper, and five kilos of pure poison loose in New York City, and we haven't even scratched the bottom of it." Actually 12 dead!

“So much for that. Daddy Haddy had had it.”

“… to take their kicks and greet their chicks;…” show less

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 show more 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. show less

Himes’ first novel shows that his talents as a writer were intact early. The prose swings hard and direct, the poignancy intensified by the first-person narration. A reader feels the anger, remorse, doubt, and defiance of the protagonist as he maneuvers around and through the mire of classism, colorism, and the ubiquitous racism of WWII-era Los Angeles. The potential for violence hangs over almost every encounter, like a choking smoke. Himes’ early novels didn’t get the respect they show more deserve, but in the wild action of the last pages here, you can almost see his raucous Harlem novels coming a decade later. show less