A Rage in Harlem

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 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.

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

A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes was originally published in 1957. I listened to an audio version read by Samuel L. Jackson who was the perfect person to voice this blistering, unrelentless yet humorous story. The main character, Jackson, isn’t the sharpest tool in the box, he is vulnerable and totally besotted by his girlfriend, Imabelle, so when she involves him in a scam he goes along willingly. Of course when things go pear-shaped, he finds himself out of his money, out of his job and without Imabelle and her missing trunk.

Jackson goes to his twin brother, Goldy, for help to find Imabelle. Goldy, works his own scam impersonating a nun and collecting “charity”. Before too long Goldy is convinced that there is money to be had show more with this deal, the police are again involved and Jackson is still convinced that Imabelle needs to be rescued. The action takes place over the course of one long and exciting night, but come morning there is a body count to be tallied into the story as well.

The borough of Harlem and it’s residents are one of the main interests in this story. It is very quickly made clear that there is a dark anger brewing just under the surface. The people of Harlem live under different laws from the whites, and the poverty, although never directly pointed out, is explicit. A Rage in Harlem is a dark and hard-boiled crime story that keeps it’s characters on the verge of chaos and desperation. I highly recommend the story and, in particular, this audio version. show less

Read by Samuel Jackson, this was an absolute auditory treat, keeping me transfixed on the drive from Georgia to Kentucky.

Expecting something more of the snoozy literary bent, I discovered a tight little story of the dark comedy-thriller school set in Harlem in the 1950s. Jackson has scraped together every last cent to get his money 'raised up' from $10 bills to $100 bills. Though he has a job in a funeral home, he would like to make a good life for his new girlfriend... at least, once she gets divorced from her missing husband. As the money 'cooks,' the stove blows up and a FBI agent raids the kitchen. Jackson finds himself holding the bag and driven to contact his twin brother who operates in the fringes of the criminal world. What show more follows is a bunch of escalating craziness as everyone tries for a cut of the action, and poor ol' Jackson the character is the simpleton pivot on which it all turns.

It turns out that hidden beneath the rather madcap plotting is a great deal of social commentary. I loved Himes' sly insinuations through rich characterization and setting. Instead of the "it was this way, we were so poor that way, racial inequity was terrible that way," he uses solid and more emotionally powerful examples to demonstrate various realities. For instance, at one point someone is being chased by a white policeman and there's a bit of back-and-forth about what it means to give any information to the police from the perspective of a black man.

I was a little exhausted by the escalating insanity by the end (driving as much as listening, I expect, as the audio comes in under 6 hours), but the voice acting by Jackson the actor was effing a-ma-zing. He voiced an indigent landlady, a stiff white detective, a black reverend, a junkman, slick con men, and doper transvestites without missing a beat. I loved his drunk 'Fats' voice at the railway station and his pompous Reverend voice. The acting was excellent and brought a flavor to it that I would have missed reading on my own. There was a time or two when quality of the recording changed between chapters, but it soon resumed enjoyable. Himes' writing is very descriptive, evoking the flavor of a time period in Harlem and the lives of various residents. Himes makes various points about 'black dialect,' country versus city, and the 'educated' voice. The skill of the voice acting absolutely added to the quality of the experience.

Five stars for the audio.

A large chunk of gold for Kemper for reviewing the audio and bringing it to my attention. Just check under the coal chute. show less

"Goldy turned south on Seventh Avenue, past the Theresa Hotel entrance, past Sugar Ray's Tavern, past the barber shop where the sharp cats got their nappy kinks straightened out with a mixture of Vaseline and potash lye. He turned east on 121st Street into the Valley, climbed over piles of frozen garbage, kicked a mangy cur in the ribs, and entered a grimy tobacco-store which fronted for a numbers drop and reefer shop."

A Rage in Harlem is a savagely funny story set in Chester Himes' 1950s Harlem. Goldy is the savvy twin brother of the endlessly credulous Jackson. Goldy is a minor con artist who sells tickets to heaven while dressed up as Sister Gabriel. Jackson has to rank up there with the most foolish people ever to walk this planet, show more a dream victim. When he falls for a con involving changing 10 dollar bills into 100s, Goldy tries to help him recover while servicing his usual ulterior motive of helping Goldy.

Himes's regular characters, the cops Coffin Ed and Grave Digger, become involved after dead bodies start cropping up. Their solution to most problems is shooting with deadly accuracy, which of course isn't destined to lower the body count. The book is filled with sardonic humor, e.g., when Goldy goes to the Harlem post office he sees "There were pictures of three colored men wanted in Mississippi for murder. That meant they had killed a white man, because killing a colored man wasn't considered murder in Mississippi."

Jackson chases after the money he lost, and everyone chases after a trunk filled with 18 carat gold ore being used in yet another con. It's all a darkly funny roller derby through the author's tart and bitter-tasting Harlem. show less

"She held him at arms’ length, looked at the pipe still gripped in his hand, then looked at his face and read him like a book. She ran the tip of her red tongue slowly across her full cushiony, sensuous lips, making them wet-red and looked him straight in the eyes with her own glassy, speckled bedroom eyes.

The man drowned."

This is the perfect pairing of story and narrator - like all fabulous audiobooks, the narrator here elevates the reading experience. This was written in the late fifties and is set (as the title tells us) in Harlem. Himes does a very good job of establishing a sense of place, but more than that he establishes a sense of atmosphere - we can feel the undercurrents of anger and frustration in a community where equality show more is a very distant dream. The tale is dark and gritty with a definite noir feel, and yet it is loaded with humor. A very tricky act, and Jackson pulls it off with ease - his voice seems born to the story. He brings every character and every nuance to life. I just cannot recommend this version highly enough. show less

I recently had the chance to ask Walter Mosley if he had considered writing a series of historical mysteries set in Harlem. He answered that he wouldn't because others, foremost among them being Chester Himes, had already done so and done it far better he could hope to. 'A Rage in Harlem' had been on my TBR list for a long time so I made a point of tracking down a copy and reading it. It was time well spent. The description that Himes is to Harlem what Chandler is to Los Angeles is right on the mark.

The action starts on page one and doesn't let up. Jackson, a gullible mark if ever there was one, gets fleeced while trying to 'promote' 150 10-dollar bills into 150 100-dollar bills, loses his money, his job and Imabelle, the woman he show more swears has been kidnapped despite all evidence to the contrary. The hapless Jackson seeks the help of his twin brother Goldy, a junkie drag queen posing as a Sister of Mercy selling tickets to heaven to anyone who needs one. Harlem detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson also join in the hunt for the increasingly violent con artists. What follows is a madcap mix of comedy and searing violence. I couldn't put it down and fully intend to read the next seven books in this series. show less