Going To Meet the Man by Baldwin, James

New York. 1965. Dial Press. 1st American Edition. 1st Issue In Black Cloth Boards, Red Endpapers, and Top Edge Yellow. Boards Slightly Scuffed, Otherwise Very Good. No Dustjacket. hardcover. FROM THE PUBLISHER - It will come as no surprise to the readers of James Baldwin that he has been writing consistently brilliant and important short fiction for well over a decade. But with this volume they will have a chance to measure and assess the truly astonishing range and intensity of his gifts: GOING TO MEET THE MAN is the first collection of Mr. Baldwin’s stories. It includes three recent works never before published. A young girl attempts to accept the impending departure of her lover; a Negro entertainer who has made his name in Europe faces the prospect of returning to the United States; a young man who has achieved middle-class status has to accommodate his brother’s life of jazz, dope addiction, and prison; a white policeman in a southern town recalls the mutilation and lynching of a Negro: Mr. Baldwin’s situations are always ruthlessly spare. Every situation is firmly rooted in the world as we know it today, and the characters are so accurately perceived and truthfully rendered that the over-all effect is almost musical - in that we may still hear music long after it is played. Here is an author who writes about what matters, and with a capacity for honesty that may be unrivaled by any contemporary practitioner on the American scene. inventory #29883