ABOUT SOURCES
The notes that follow include full bibliographic information for all books, interviews, and periodicals that are cited. The more frequently cited archival collections are given in the list of abbreviations below.
Chester Himes’s papers, beginning about 1954, are available at the Amistad Research Center of Tulane University. The collection was mostly transferred by Lesley Himes in the 1990s; she added some materials in the 2000s, which are indicated by the number 180. Another collection, containing some of Chester Himes’s early manuscripts, is at Yale University’s Beinecke Research Library.
In addition, the following archives were valuable: Alcorn State College Archives; James Baldwin Mss., Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington; Charlotta Bass Papers, Southern California Library, Los Angeles; John Earle Bomar Memoirs, South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia; Arna Bontemps Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Library, Syracuse, New York; Alice Browning Papers and Horace Cayton Papers, both at the Vivian Harsh Collection, Carter G. Woodson Branch, Chicago Public Library; John Henrik Clarke Papers, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, New York City; Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland; Fannie Cook Papers, Missouri History Museum Library and Research Center, St. Louis; Malcolm Cowley Papers/Midwest Writers Collection and Maxim Lieber Papers, both at Newberry Library, Chicago; Matt and Evelyn Crawford Papers and John Oliver Killen Papers, both at Stuart A. Rose Library, Emory University, Atlanta; Crowell-Collier Publishing Company Records and Yaddo Papers Collection, both at Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library, New York City; Cuyahoga County Archives, Cleveland; E. Franklin Frazier Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, Washington, D.C.; Georgia State Archives, Morrow, Georgia; Lincoln University Archives/Ethnic Studies Center, Jefferson City, Missouri; Ken McCormick/Doubleday Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Bucklin Moon Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida; Ohio History Connection (formerly Ohio Historical Society), Columbus; Ohio State University Archives, Columbus; Jo Sinclair Papers, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University, Boston; South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia; and Spartanburg County Court Records, Spartanburg, South Carolina.
ABBREVIATIONS
Abbreviations are used throughout the notes that follow for frequently cited archives, people, and published works.
Archives
AAK Alfred A. Knopf Papers, box 30, folder 11, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
AG Arnold Gingrich Papers, Special Collections Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
CH-FBI Chester B. Himes, File No. 105-2502, Federal Bureau of Investigation
CH-RF Chester Himes Application, Julius Rosenwald Papers, box 421, folder “Chester Himes,” John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library, Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee
CHP-T Chester Himes Papers, Amistad Research Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana
CHP-Y Chester Himes Papers, Beinecke Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
CUY Cuyahoga County Court Records, Cleveland, Ohio
CVVP Carl Van Vechten Papers, Beinecke Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
HLM Henry Lee Moon Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio
JC Jack Conroy Papers, Newberry Library, Chicago
JSH Joseph S. Himes Papers, Amistad Research Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana
LH Langston Hughes Papers, Beinecke Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
LM Loren Miller Papers, Huntington Library, San Marino, California
LPH Lesley Packard Himes Papers, Amistad Research Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana
MF Michel Fabre Papers, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript Archives and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
MHLM Mollie and Henry Lee Moon Papers, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, New York City
ODH Ohio Department of Health, Columbus
RE Ralph Ellison Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
RW Richard Wright Papers, Beinecke Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
SAB Sterling A. Brown Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, Washington, D.C.
CH Chester B. Himes
CVV Carl Van Vechten
JAW John Williams
WT Willa Thompson
Published Works
ATB-MF As the Twig Is Bent by Joseph Himes, Michel Fabre Papers, box 8, folder 27, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
CFS Chester Himes. Cast the First Stone. New York: Coward-McCann, 1952
CH-CSS Chester Himes. The Collected Short Stories of Chester Himes. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1990
DCDJ Dear Chester, Dear John: Letters Between Chester Himes and John A. Williams. Edited by John and Lori Williams. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008
HF Hoyt Fuller, “Chester Himes: Traveler on the Long, Rough, Lonely Old Road” [interview], Black World, March 1972, pp. 4–22, 87–98
MLA My Life of Absurdity: The Later Years, the Autobiography of Chester Himes by Chester Himes. 1977. Reprint, New York: Paragon House, 1990
MMH-DCDJ “My Man Himes: An Interview with Chester Himes.” Pp. 179–232 of Dear Chester, Dear John (see above entry)
QH The Quality of Hurt: The Early Years, the Autobiography of Chester Himes by Chester Himes. 1972. Reprint, New York: Paragon House, 1990
TG The Third Generation by Chester Himes. 1954. Reprint, New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1989
Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.
xi“the problem of the Twentieth Century”: W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Forethought,” in The Souls of Black Folks, ed. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Terri Hume Oliver (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 5.
xii“jingle in a broken tongue”: Paul Laurence Dunbar, “The Poet,” in The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1913); Benjamin Brawley, Paul Laurence Dunbar: Poet of His People (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1936), 76–77.
xii“a fighter fights, and a writer writes”: QH, 117.
xiii“if he is not the greatest”: CVV, “Letters of Reference—Chester B. Himes,” CH-RF.
xiii“for sheer intensity of feeling”: M.R., October 25, 1946, AAK.
xiii“nauseated her”: QH, 77.
xiii“We are not accustomed”: Ken McCormick to CH, April 1, 1953, Ken McCormick/Doubleday Papers, box 51, folder “Chester Himes,” Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
1: OLD SCHOOL NEGRO
1by his middle name, Chester: In a second case of Estelle and Joseph naming their children after relatives whose names of official record differed substantially from their colloquial ones, Estelle named her son Chester Bomar after her own father, who never had any name recorded on an official document, whether census or property deed, other than Elias Bomar. But the real irony lay in the fact that she delivered her son on the birthday of John Earle Bomar, the man who had owned her father during much of his twenty-seven years of slavery.
2using the terms “turks” and “brass ankles”: Richard B. Morris, “White Bondage in Ante-Bellum South Carolina,” South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, October 1948, 194.
2“pedigreed Englishman”: “Estelle’s Notes,” transcribed by Joseph Himes Jr., MF box 8, folder 26.
2a prosperous Spartanburg merchant: Jesse Cleveland, Estate Inventory, December 3, 1851, Deed Book, Spartanburg County, Spartanburg, South Carolina.
2much of the original land: Dr. J. B. O. Landrum, History of Spartanburg County: Embracing an Account of Many Important Events and Biographical Sketches of Statesmen, Divines and Other Public Men and the Names of Many Others Worthy of Record in the History of Their County (Atlanta: Franklin Publishing, 1900), 55, 60.
2valued at $700: Cleveland, Estate Inventory.
3$39,000 worth of “personal property”: “Robt E. Cleveland,” 1860 U.S. Census, South Carolina, Spartanburg District, p. 17.
3the last Cleveland child: “Estelle’s Notes.”
3estimated value was $550: “Theron Earle,” 1840 U.S. Census, South Carolina, Spartanburg County, p. 158; Last Will and Testament of Theron Earle, November 12, 1841, Spartanburg, South Carolina, File 2351, South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia.
3an “octoroon”: “Estelle’s Notes.”
4granddaughter of Elisha Bomar: QH, 5.
4“no one ever wielded a more graceful pen”: Landrum, History of Spartanburg, 362.
4stocked with works by Alexander Pope: John Earle Bomar, Inventory, Book J, p. 68, Probate Court Spartanburg County, Spartanburg, South Carolina.
5“white looking”: QH, 4–5.
5“a worse heart-broken”: Tom Moore Craig, Upcountry South Carolina Goes to War (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2011), 147.
5$125 for a lot: Melinda Bomar Grantee, A. J. Marshall Grantor, CL #2 E. Morris Street, August 12, 1871, Book G, Deed Book, Dalton County, Georgia, p. 211.
5born on February 23, 1874: Estelle B. Himes, Death Certificate #53275, ODH.
6accepted $103 from Elias: Elias Bomar, Book DDD, Deed Book, Spartanburg County, pp. 552, 554, 574.
6own twenty-seven shares: Petition for the Estate of Thomas Bomar, “Inventory and Appraisement of the Estate of Thos. M. Bomar, Deceased,” Book D, Probate Court, Spartanburg County.
6“We must make this institution”: Leland S. Cozart, A Venture of Faith: Barber-Scotia College, 1867–1967 (Charlotte, N.C.: Heritage Printers, 1976), 12.
7three-fifths—of black teachers: James M. McPherson, The Abolitionist Legacy: From Reconstruction to the NAACP (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975), 274.
7“know the Book”: Catherine Owen Peare, Mary McLeod Bethune (New York: Vanguard, 1951), 58.
7“gave me my very first vision”: Mary McLeod Bethune, interviewed by Charles Johnson, summer 1946, Daniel Mortimer Williams Collection, M95-2, State Library and Archives of Florida.
8“the greater part of the [Negro] race”: Frenise Logan, The Negro in North Carolina, 1876–1894 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1964), 140, quoting from Albert Bushnell Hart, The Nation, March 17, 1892, 208.
8earned a first-class certificate: Spartanburg Board of Examiners, Book SSS 1891–1892, South Carolina Department of Archives and History.
8Joseph Sandy Himes: Joseph S. Himes, Death Certificate #3825, ODH. The death certificate, completed by G. B. Forbes, gives the birth date as 1874; however, the 1880 U.S. Census, conducted in June of that year, has him as already being seven years old.
9Sandy Neely: “Sandy Neally,” 1870 U.S. Census, Georgia, Washington County, Tennille Township; QH, 5; Fannie Wiggins, Death Certificate #57902, ODH.
9Samuel Robinson: “Samuel Robinson,” 1860 U.S. Census, Georgia, Washington County, Schedule 2, Slave Schedule.
9Elizabeth Hines: “Elizabeth Hines,” Personal Property Tax Records, Washington County, 1872–1877, Tanner’s District 93, Georgia State Archives, Morrow, Georgia.
9came from Londonderry, Ireland: William Neale Hurley, “John William Hines: His Descendants Principally of North Carolina and Virginia and Their Associated Families” [pamphlet] (Bowie, Md.: Heritage, 1995), iii.
9O’Heyne, or O’hEidhin: Ibid., 7. This seems to be the most plausible origin of the Himes surname, particularly since there were numerous people named Hines in the antebellum American South, but only a handful named Heinz. In the United States, there came to be no appreciable distinction between the pronunciation of “Heinz” and “Hines,” and in the South, by African American speakers to white Americans, there were only fairly slight distinctions between “Hines” and “Himes.” Between 1880 and 1920, a variety of public and official documents recorded the family name of Chester Himes’s father as “Hines,” “Hinds,” “Hynes,” “Hymes,” and “Himes.” The 1920 U.S. Census uses “Hinds,” the 1889 Claflin University catalog uses “Hines,” and the 1906 Spartanburg State Court record uses “Hynes.”
9an “ungovernable temper”: TG, 34–35. I have decided to selectively use The Third Generation, particularly the descriptions of the Taylor family in the Deep South, as autobiography. In a letter written in 1973, following the publication of CH’s memoir The Quality of Hurt, a professor from England wrote to him and compared Third Generation with Quality of Hurt, specifically the overlapping passages. CH replied in a rare case of an author unguardedly reflecting on the autobiographical dimensions in fiction and the fictional dimensions of memoir in works written decades apart. He claimed that Third Generation was, with the obvious exception of the conclusion, a more faithful example of autobiography, mainly because he was temporally closer to the first twenty years of his life and able to recall them with more precision when he was writing the novel in 1952 and 1953.
Most of 3rd Gen is true as I remembered my life at the time I was writing it. The last chapter is entirely fictional. . . . The “green paint episode” as you term it, is more likely true in the novel, as are many other things (true to my memory at that time), because the novel was written twenty years before my autobiography which was written after the sharp reality of memory begins to fail. . . . Even now I remember the wrecking of aunt Bee’s (Fannie Wiggins’) car as pure fact. . . .
In the 3rd Gen I was trying to use some of the essential truths of my life, as I remembered them, to write a work of fiction; in my autobiography I was trying to state the unvarnished truth of my life as I remembered it and my publisher would publish it.
CH to Mr. Julie, September 5, 1973, MF.
9racially charged event: Tad Evans, compiler, “Washington County, Georgia, Newspaper Clippings,” vol. 2, 1867–1880, Genealogical Room, Washington County Museum, Sandersville, Georgia, pp. 66–67, 68, 262. The newspaper digests at this historical society show regular evidence of homicidal racial violence in the aftermath of the Civil War.
10owned personal goods: “Sandy Neely,” Personal Property Tax Records, Washington County, 1872–1877, McBride’s District 88, Georgia State Archives.
10Anna Himes died: “Funeral Notice [Mrs. Himes],” box 3, folder 33, HLM.
10a child named Fannie in 1886: Fannie Wiggins, Death Certificate #57902, ODH. The certificate, filled out by Leah, lists Annie Robinson as Fannie’s mother. However, the death notice for “Mrs. Joseph Himes” was retained among Leah’s effects. In 1892, all of the Himes children, led by Leah, were involved in a court petition against Mary Himes to redistribute the estate.
10“well known and highly honored”: Henry Lee Moon, English IIC Composition, March 23, 1917, MHLM, box 6, folder “Glenville High School.”
11On February 4, 1891: Leah Himes and Roddy K. Moon, certificate of marriage, February 4, 1891, box 3, folder 2, HLM.
11Himes entered the first-year normal school: Claflin University catalog, 1889–1890, courtesy of Jennifer Squire.
11“a good moral character”: Blinzy L. Gore, On Hilltop High: The Origin and History of Claflin (Spartanburg, S.C.: Reprint Publishers, 1994), 44.
11a “magnificent actor”: TG, 35.
11“fully committed to Industrial Education”: Gore, On Hilltop High, p. 112.
12“not one in 1,000”: McPherson, The Abolitionist Legacy, 281.
12finished the three-year course: Claflin University catalog, 1893, p. 14; Claflin University Archives, miscellany (typescript list of students in 1893), Orangeburg, South Carolina.
12a standard curriculum: Clyde W. Hall, One Hundred Years of Educating at Savannah State College 1890–1990 (East Peoria, Ill.: Versa Press, 1991), 14.
12Savannah’s 55,268 residents: 1900 U.S. Census, Georgia, Chatham County, Savannah Township.
13“Massa, tell ’em we are rising”: Richard R. Wright Jr., 87 Years Behind the Curtain (Philadelphia: Rare Books, 1965), 17.
14Among Wright’s prized volumes: Ibid., 53.
14“I do not believe in educating”: Ibid., 35.
14“Get up and go!”: Gore, On Hilltop High, 110.
15He ran a commercial blacksmithing: “J.S. Himes, Blacksmith and Wheelwright,” advertisement, Savannah Tribune, 18 November 18, 1905, 2.
16married on June 27, 1901: “A Spartanburg Wedding,” Savannah Tribune, July 6, 1901, 2.
16“popular” young couple: Ibid.
17his Savannah Tribune columns: Linda O. Hines and Allen Jones, “A Voice of Black Protest: The Savannah Men’s Sunday Club, 1905–1911,” Phylon (2d quarter 1973): 195.
17the court granted Estelle one-tenth, $752.04: “Sale Bill,” Estate of Thomas Bomar, Probate Court, Spartanburg County.
17“promptly and satisfactorily done”: “J.S. Himes, Blacksmith” ad.
18“ignorant and narrow-minded”: Booker T. Washington, “One Other Lesson,” Savannah Tribune, July 15, 1905, 2.
18“chased negroes, stoned and shot”: “Orgie of Bloodshed,” Savannah Tribune, September 29, 1906, 1.
18twenty-five African Americans: Charles Crowe, “Racial Massacre in Atlanta, September 22, 1906,” Journal of Negro History (April 1969): 168.
18had to shoulder a rifle: Walter White, A Man Called White (1948; repr., New York: Arno Press, 1969), 5–12.
18paraphrase of the song “Dixie”: Hines and Jones, “A Voice of Black Protest,” 199.
18Black Savannah citizens boycotted: “Separate Seats for Negroes,” Savannah Tribune, September 15, 1906, 1.
19“the Negro was emotional”: Wright, 87 Years Behind, 72.
20parties, which were noticed: “In a Social Way,” Atlanta Tribune, February 8, 1902, 2.
20on August 27, 1907: Minutes of the Board of Trustees, Lincoln Institute, p. 77, Lincoln University Archives/Ethnic Studies Center, Jefferson City, Missouri.
20they agreed to name him Joseph Sandy: Joseph Himes understood his second son to be junior, and either did not know his father’s first name or didn’t acknowledge the custom. Of course, the second son, Joseph Sandy, was properly Joseph Sandy Himes III.
20the strongest college preparatory curriculum: W. Sherman Savage, The History of Lincoln University (Jefferson City, Mo.: Lincoln University, 1939), 124.
21“fundamental idea shall be to combine”: Ibid., 3.
21By 1879 the state had taken over: Henry Sullivan Williams, “The Development of the Negro Public School in Missouri,” Journal of Negro History (April 1920): 154.
22An “artist at the forge”: TG, 29.
22“fresh and vigorous”: Anna Julia Cooper, A Voice from the South (1892; repr., New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 11.
23“Here in America”: Ibid.
23patrolled the dormitories: Louise Hutchinson, Anna J. Cooper: A Voice from the South (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institute, 1981), 83.
23“to be a first class American”: Olin P. Wells, “What It Means to Be an American,” 1914 Senior Class Yearbook, “The Gate to Success,” Lincoln University Archives/Ethnic Studies Center.
23“bad English”: Joseph Himes, taped interview with Michel Fabre, November 15, 1985, MF, box 35.
24open can of paint: CH to Julie, September 5, 1973.
25“All the leading Negroes”: Roddy Moon to Leah Moon, May 1, 1904, HLM, box 3, folder 33.
25Allen fired his old friend: Minutes of the Board of Trustees, Lincoln Institute, p. 188, Lincoln University Archives/Ethnic Studies Center; TG, 42.
25“The automobile has replaced the wagon”: Lincoln University, Fifty-First Annual Catalog, 1922–23, p. 45, Lincoln University Archives/Ethnic Studies Center.
2. THE SOUTHERN CROSSES THE YELLOW DOG
27“lazy Missouri accent”: CH to Yves Malartic, February 26, 1953, MF, box 7, folder 4.
28“protected in all their rights”: “General Alcorn Had a Tough Job,” Mississippi Democrat, December 29, 1965, in “Alcorn, James L.,” clipping file, Vicksburg Public Library, Vicksburg, Mississippi.
28“shielded” the boys: ATB, 4.
28Alcorn had only a quarter: “Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College, 1914–1915,” Alcorn A&M (Natchez, 1915), p. 35.
29turned away a hundred: “Report of the Board of Trustees,” Alcorn State College Archives, RG1, box 1, folder 5 “1912–1913,” Lorman, Mississippi.
29“give the students a thorough mastery”: “Catalogue 1914–1915,” p. 57.
29“the negro dialect”: “Clipping File,” Woodville Republican, June 5, 1918, p. 1, Port Gibson Public Library, Port Gibson, Mississippi.
29“ain’t” was “absolutely prohibited”: ATB, 4.
29fifty male students: “Catalogue 1914–1915,” p. 47.
30“to train practical blacksmiths”: “Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College, 1916–1917,” Alcorn A&M (Natchez, 1917), p. 30.
30one graduate annually: Ibid., pp. 74–75.
30“a comedown”: TG, 49.
31“had been hurt”: QH, 265.
31“escape safari”: ATB, 4.
31“very fair girls”: TG, 116.
31for her ability to translate: Gloria T. Williams-May, “Lucy Craft Laney—The Mother of the Children of the People: Educator, Reformer, Social Activist,” PhD diss., University of South Carolina, 1998, 44–48.
32“shocked by the sight”: TG, 115.
32a state that did not provide: James Anderson, lecture, Emory University, November 2009.
32“de goat done dead”: TG, p. 122.
32three thousand people were left homeless: “Fire Sweeps Through Augusta: Flames Cut Red Swath to the Boundary of the City; Put Loss at $8,000,000,” Atlanta Constitution, March 23, 1916: 1–2; Craig Britt, “Undaunted by Great Disaster, Citizens of Augusta Prepare for Building a Better City,” Atlanta Constitution, March 24, 1916, 1, 5, 12.
33“Alcorn Ode”: Mrs. E. B. Himes, “Alcorn Ode,” Alcorn Centennial Yearbook, 1928, p. 28, Alcorn A&M College, Alcorn, Mississippi.
33“These were the moments”: TG, 70.
34“Forget our special grievances”: W. E. B. Du Bois, “Close Ranks,” The Crisis, July 1918, 111.
34dismissed for reading northern periodicals: TG, 67.
34Women were standing”: Ibid., 104.
35“high levels of expectation”: ATB, 4.
35“We were a small”: Ibid.
35the word “damn”: Ibid.; TG, 86.
35playing Chopin’s “Fantaisie Impromptu”: TG, 94.
36“You mustn’t think of yourself as colored”: Ibid., 99; QH, 5.
36he apparently withdrew: Edward Harry Himes, Pine Bluff, Ark., Atlanta University Bulletin, series 2, no. 43, April 1921, p. 33; Edward Harry Himes, Pine Bluff, Ark., Atlanta University Bulletin, series 2, no. 47, April 1922, p. 33. None of the subsequent bulletins in the 1920s carry the name of Edward Himes as a student.
36a regular visitor to the school: Bobby Wade Saucier, “The Public Career of Theodore G. Bilbo,” PhD diss., Tulane University, 1971, 21; Stephen Cresswell, Rednecks, Redeemers, and Race: Mississippi After Reconstruction, 1877–1917 (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2006), 209–10. Between 1916 and 1920 when he was governor, Bilbo himself often needed a retreat; the sparring with his political rivals regularly became violent and he was assaulted and knocked unconscious by his constituents on more than one occasion between 1911 and 1920.
36Joseph Himes joked with him: The Bilbo Papers at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg offer nothing to verify Bilbo’s trips to Alcorn during his first term as populist governor of the state (1916–1920). According to Bilbo scholar Chester Morgan, Bilbo at least argued unsuccessfully for a higher appropriation for Alcorn during his second term as governor (1928–1932).
37“my father was born and raised”: QH, 22.
37“Mother kept chopping”: Joseph Himes, taped interview with Michel Fabre, November 15, 1985, MF, box 35.
37“a quarrelsome nature”: Estelle B. Himes Plaintiff, Joseph S. Himes Defendant, “Decree,” December 20, 1927, Court of Common Pleas, CUY.
37the Greek and Roman myths: Michael J. Bandler, “Portrait of a Man Reading: Chester Himes, Author of The Quality of Hurt,” Washington Post, April 9, 1972, BW2.
38thirty-two people were dead: Joyce Bridges, “Looking Back,” Port Gibson Reveille, December 15, 1988; Joyce Bridges, “Looking Back,” Port Gibson Reveille, November 10, 1998.
384525 Garfield Avenue: St. Louis City Directory; Joseph Himes to Michel Fabre, March 7, 1986, MF, box 8, folder 26.
38wartime surge of blacks: Randy Finley, “Black Arkansans and World War One,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly (Autumn 1990): 250.
38Hundreds of African Americans: Grif Stockley and Jeannie M. Whayne, “Federal Troops and the Elaine Massacres,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly (Autumn 2002): 272–83; Walter F. White, “ ‘Massacring Whites’ in Arkansas,” The Nation, December 6, 1919, 715–16.
39none of the graduates: Elizabeth Wheeler, “Isaac Fisher: The Frustrations of a Negro Educator at Branch Normal College, 1902–1911,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly (Spring 1982): 40.
39Himes family boarded downtown: “Pine Bluff, Arkansas,” Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, 1908, Pine Bluff Public Library; “Lillie Grotia,” 1920 U.S. Census, Arkansas, Jefferson County, Pine Bluff, Ward 2.
40Himes boys were placed: “Annual Catalogue, 1920–21,” Agricultural, Mechanical and Normal School, Branch of the University of Arkansas, pp. 46–47.
41“gone to Memphis”: QH, 9.
41“sentimentality and hypocrisy”: H. W. Boynton, “Book Reviews: Yellow Is Black,” The Independent, May 13, 1922, 108.
41By 1923 she had provided: “Annual Catalogue, 1920–21,” p. 15.
42“ate that stuff up!”: Joseph Himes, taped interview.
42“acquaint the student with the facts”: “Annual Catalogue, 1920–21,” p. 17.
42“a number of textbooks”: QH, 10.
42“a thrilling and eye-opening experience”: ATB, 5.
42“I could read blueprints”: QH, 74–75.
43“A delicate and dangerous”: Ibid., 11.
43“naughty”: Ibid.
43Joseph maintained that Chester: Joseph Himes, taped interview.
44“Penelope and I was Ulysses”: TG, 155.
45city of nearly 800,000: Joseph Heathcott, “Black Archipelago: Politics and Social Life in the Jim Crow City,” Journal of Social Life and History (Spring 2005): 707.
45eventually settling on Belle Glade Avenue: Joseph S. Himes and Estelle B. Himes indenture to Abraham and Bettie Davis, December 24, 1923, St. Louis Deed Book, microfilm, St. Louis City Hall, p. 380, St. Louis, Missouri.
45fifty people dead: Robert Asher, “Documents of the East St. Louis Riot,” Journal of Illinois Historical Society (Autumn 1972): 327.
45“He was a pathetic figure”: TG, 159.
46For a full year he specialized: CH, transcript, Charles Sumner High School, St. Louis, Missouri, 1925.
46“hated” Sumner: TG, 160.
3. BANQUETS AND COCAINE BALLS
49Joseph Sr. and Chester came first: Estelle B. Himes Plaintiff v. Joseph S. Himes Defendant, November 16, 1927, “Petition for Alimony and Equitable Relief,” Court of Common Pleas, CUY.
50By 1930, Seventy-Ninth Street: Todd Michney, “Changing Neighborhoods: Race and Upward Mobility in Southeast Cleveland, 1930–1980,” PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 2004, 93.
51also a friend of Mary: Henry Lee Moon to Mary McLeod Bethune, November 5, 1937, HLM, box 1, folder 2.
51“My father’s people”: QH, 16.
52“ ‘You don’t like black people’ ”: TG, 155–56.
52“infantilized”: Joseph Himes, taped interview with Michel Fabre, November 15, 1985, MF, box 35.
52Chester began his scholastic year: CH, transcript, Charles Sumner High School, St. Louis, Missouri, 1925. The record was mailed on March 2, 1925.
53“anxious to prove”: Chester B. Himes, “Spring Day of 1925 in Cleveland,” Cleveland News, December 5, 1945, Chester Himes Clipping File, Cleveland Public Library, Ohio.
54kept a 90 average: “Brooks Friebolin Leads Honor Roll,” Blue and Gold, October 29, 1925, 3, Cleveland Public Library.
54On October 8, 1925: Joseph S. and Estelle B. Himes, CUY, Deeds Book, V. 3330 p. 74.
54“the nicest house”: Joseph Himes, taped interview.
54the shouts of “colored boy”: Henry Lee Moon, “Encounter with the C.P.,” p. 4, MHLM, box 14, folder “Memoirs.”
55had written “86”: QH, 17.
55along with dozens of other members: “College Is Goal of Majority of Students,” Blue and Gold, January 22, 1926, 1, Cleveland Public Library.
55“Our people need more doctors”: Henry Lee Moon, “The Closed Door,” MHLM, box 14, folder “Memoirs.”
56“No matter what your aim”: TG, 200.
56“ruined” after a season: Moon, “The Closed Door.”
56“to an old fat ugly whore”: QH, 18.
57“spattering open”: Ibid., 20.
58“incontinent vanity”: TG, 236.
58“will you please-please-please shut up!”: Ibid., 243.
61“a brief survey”: Ohio State University Catalogue, 1926, p. 102.
61“permanently excused”: CH, transcript, Ohio State University, CHP-T, box 40, folder 6.
61successfully petitioned: Pamela Pritchard, “The Negro Experience at The Ohio State University in the First Sixty-Five Years 1873–1938 with Special Emphasis on Negroes in the College of Education,” PhD diss., Ohio State University, 1982, 62; Ohio State University Yearbook, 1926.
621389 Summit Street: Ohio State University Student Directory, 1926.
62“He dreaded the classes”: TG, 261.
62“colored people should not”: Pritchard, “The Negro Experience,” 78.
63“slightly hysterical”: TG, 264.
63“Light-complexioned blacks”: QH, 29.
64“You got an awful lot”: Ibid., 25.
65“leaped atop tables”: Ibid., 28.
65“I fixed your little red wagon”: Ibid., 30.
66“ill health and failing”: CH, transcript, Ohio State University.
66“one of those soft”: QH, 37.
67“small, dried up looking”: Ibid., 32.
67“soft-spoken, handsome”: Ibid.
67“that peculiar, almost virgin”: CH, Lonely Crusade (1947; repr., New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 1993), 325.
68one hundred bootleggers: Rick Porello, The Rise and Fall of the Cleveland Mafia (New York: Barricade, 1995), 28.
69he featured in his first detective fiction: CH, A Rage in Harlem (1957 as For the Love of Imabelle; repr., New York: Vintage, 1991), 21.
69“ ‘Unchain ’em in the big corral’ ”: CH, If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945; repr., New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 1986), 37.
69“a big-framed”: QH, 38.
69“But where he got”: CH, “Prison Mass,” CH-CSS, 162.
70proclaimed Joe a “genius”: Lester A. Walton, “Pupils Win Honor Despite Handicaps,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 12, 1927, 5.
70“hearty congratulations”: Ernest Wilkins to Joseph Himes, February 21, 1928, JSH, box 1, folder 2.
70on September 26, 1927: State of Ohio v. Chester Hines, No. 16313, “Indictment for Forgery and Uttering a Forged Check,” Chester Hines, Court of Common Pleas, Franklin County, Ohio.
71“failed and willfully neglected”: Estelle B. Himes Plaintiff v. Joseph S. Himes Defendant, “Petition for Alimony and Equitable Relief,” Court of Common Pleas, CUY.
71summon Joseph to court: Estelle B. Himes Plaintiff, Joseph S. Himes Defendant, “Decree,” December 20, 1927, Court of Common Pleas, CUY.
71On December 20, 1927: Joseph S. and Estelle B. Himes, CUY Deeds Book, V. 3330, p. 74.
71Chester changed his plea to guilty: State of Ohio v. Chester Hines, No. 16313. CH provides a completely different chronology of events in his memoir The Quality of Hurt, which he wrote forty-three years later and without any of the legal records.
72“a congested area of vice”: TG, 276.
72hoped to take Jean to Detroit: QH, 39.
73She told him she thought”: CH, Yesterday Will Make You Cry (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), 150.
74arrested them on October 9: “Two Held in Firearms Theft,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 6, 1928; Chester Himes, No. 35051, Criminal Record Department, Cuyahoga County Archives, Cleveland.
74“not likely to engage”: State of Ohio v. Chester Hines, Case No. 16313, Court of Common Pleas, Franklin County, January 28, 1928, Columbus, Ohio.
74“over the vehement protests”: QH, 42.
76requiring an examination: State of Ohio v. Chester Himes, Case No. 35052, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, December 6, 1928, p. 327.
76McMahon sentenced: Chester Himes, Case No. 35051, December 19, 1928, Judge McMahon Presiding, Record of Convictions January Term 1926 to & September Term 1931 Cuyahoga County, p. 190. A dozen years later McMahon, no friend to African Americans, would uphold the foreclosure of a home purchased by a black couple attempting to integrate a white neighborhood—see “The Right to Own a Home,” Cleveland Call and Post, February 29, 1940, 6.
76bout for local headlines: “Robber Gets 20 Years: Youth Sent in Pen for Holdup in Heights,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, December 20, 1928, 2.
4. GRAY CITY OF EXILED MEN
77He entered the prison two days: “#59623 Himes, Chester,” Ohio Penitentiary Register of Prisoners, Ohio History Connection, microfilm 1536, pp. 111–12, Columbus, Ohio.
78forty-two hundred convicts: D. J. Bonzo, “Statistical Report with Movement of Population of the Ohio Penitentiary, June 1931,” Ohio State Historical Society, box 51, 593, series 1796, p. 7; P. E. Thomas, “The Ohio Penitentiary,” State of Ohio Eighth Annual Report of the Department of Public Welfare (December 1930), 503.
78stood at the end of lines: “Ohio Penitentiary Fades into History,” Cleveland Call and Post, May 24, 1973, 4A.
79more than a quarter of: D. J. Bonzo, “Balance Sheet of Color of Men for Year Ending December 31, 1931”; “Annual Statistical Report with Movement of Population of the Ohio Penitentiary January 1, 1931, to December 31, 1931,” Ohio History Connection, box 51, 593, series 1796, p. 50.
79forty-six-year-old Kentuckian: “Flo Wallace,” 1930 U.S. Census, Ohio, Franklin County, Columbus City, p. 228.
80Only about fifty: P. E. Thomas, “Education of Men Entering and Leaving the Institution,” State of Ohio Eighth Annual Report of the Department of Public Welfare (December 1930), 509.
80“He hadn’t ever had”: Chester Himes, “I Don’t Want to Die,” CH-CSS, 205.
80“Every one of them looked”: CFS, 4; CH to CVV, February 18, 1948, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1956.” CH described major portions of the novel Cast the First Stone as “more or less autobiographical.”
81“treacherous” lot: QH, 62.
81“free to roam the city”: David Myers and Elise Myers Central Ohio’s Historic Prisons (Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2009), 43.
81“half afraid that every big”: CFS, 110.
82Pat McDermott: “Bloody Crew Is Loosed on State,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 20, 1929, 1.
82on February 28, 1930: Myers and Myers, Central Ohio’s Historic Prisons, 55–57.
83“in these hands I hold”: CH, Yesterday Will Make You Cry (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), 75.
83he claimed ignorance: “Chester Hines,” 1930 U.S. Census, Ohio, Franklin County, Columbus City, p. 228.
83“I didn’t get anything but”: CFS, 124.
84“loaded stick and the concrete”: QH, 69.
85he received a check: “Ohio Convict Rewarded,” New York Times, April 23, 1930, 3.
85the 166th Regiment: “Pen Ex-Warden’s Rites Tomorrow,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 7, 1952, 7. “Convict Charges Pen Dope Traffic,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 25, 1935, 8.
85“bitchery and abomination”: CFS, 167.
85“passive resistance” campaign: “Ohio Penitentiary 1930 Fire,” Columbus and Central Ohio Historian (November 1984): 17.
85On April 28: F. Raymond Daniell, “Ohio Prison Quiet, 300 Resume Work,” New York Times, May 2, 1930, 5.
86commandant of the 166th: “Machine Gun Kills Two Ohio Convicts,” New York Times, May 9, 1930, 15.
86“small rebellious army”: Thomas, “The Ohio Penitentiary,” 562.
87Negro inmates were the recognized: “Negroes Are Fire Heroes,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 22, 1930, 1, 3.
88“grotesque fantasy”: CFS, 137.
88“I want you for my woman”: Ibid., 137, 107.
88“no one tried to rape me”: QH, 61.
89Ohio legislature passed three laws: N. R. Howard, “Ohio Adopts Plan for Prison Reform,” New York Times, April 19, 1931, 57.
89“Under the provisions”: J. C. Woodard, “The Ohio Board of Parole,” State of Ohio Thirteenth Annual Report of the Department of Public Welfare (December 1935), 275.
89“take it easy”: “Local Items,” Ohio Penitentiary News, September 12, 1931, 2.
89September 17, 1931: “#59623 Himes, Chester” file.
90“having stared so long”: CFS, 178.
90“if I just had my life”: CH, Yesterday Will Make You Cry, 219; QH, 60.
90In May 1932: Joseph Himes and Agnes Rowe, May 26, 1932, Marriage Record #A4776, CUY.
90Chicago Defender carry news: Alexander O. Taylor, “Ohio State News: Cleveland News,” Chicago Defender, June 25, 1932, 12.
91to work toward a master’s degree: “Blind Student to Return to Oberlin Studies Soon,” New York Amsterdam News, September 23, 1931, 3.
91“There is one rule”: “Writing,” Ohio Penitentiary News, July 5, 1930, 2.
91“ ‘I asked him was there’ ”: CFS, 106.
92“black murderer of great intelligence”: QH, 64.
92“ ‘I’m going to take you up’ ”: CFS, 138–39.
92The Maltese Falcon: Michael J. Bandler, “Portrait of a Man Reading: Chester Himes, Author of The Quality of Hurt,” Washington Post, April 9, 1972, BW2.
92“Most of the black convicts”: QH, 64.
93a “dark brown skin” man: CH, “His Last Day,” CH-CSS, 291, 303.
93“crying softly”: CH, “The Night’s for Crying,” Esquire, January 1937, 148.
931400 African American prisoners: Bonzo, “Balance Sheet of Color of Men for Year Ending December 31, 1931”; “Balance Sheet of Life Men for Year Ending December 31, 1935”; “Annual Statistical Report with Movement of Population of the Ohio Penitentiary January 1, 1935, to December 31, 1935,” Ohio History Connection, box 51, 593, series 1796, p. 42.
94Merrill Chandler: The data in this paragraph on prisoner executions comes from an archives of photographed prisoners, “Photographs of Executed Prisoners,” State Properties, Ohio History Connection, box 3, folder Ohio Penitentiary.
94circulation of around 100,000: Donald Joyce, “Magazines of Afro-American Thought on the Mass Market: Can They Survive?,” American Libraries (December 1976): 680–81; Abby Johnson and Ronald Johnson, Propaganda and Aesthetics: The Literary Politics of African-American Magazines in the Twentieth Century (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1990), 109–11.
95“put in the ‘cripple’ company”: CH, “Prison Mass,” CH-CSS, 152, 163.
95“I might not have believed: Ibid., 186.
96“the whiteness of Swiss cheese”: Ibid., 152, 170.
96“He wanted to do”: Ibid., 191.
97“What right had a ‘nigger’ ”: CH, “A Black Man Has Red Blood,” Chicago Defender, June 2, 1934, 9.
97“we ate our good-doin’ bread”: CFS, 188.
97Sentenced to ten years: “#67175 Rico, Prince,” Ohio Penitentiary Register of Prisoners, Ohio History Connection, microfilm 1536, pp. 293–94.
98“was the boy in the story”: CH to CVV, March 11, 1952, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1955.”
98“I think Mother talked”: Joseph Himes to Robert E. Skinner, September 23, 1988, MF, box 8, folder 26.
100Esquire had a newsstand circulation: Arnold Gingrich, Nothing but People: The Early Days at Esquire; A Personal History 1928–1958 (New York: Crown, 1971), 107.
100“ample hair on its chest”: Arnold Gingrich to Ernest Hemingway, February 24, 1933, quoted in Michael Reynolds, Hemingway: The 1930s (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), 123.
100“any trace of any kind of accent”: Gingrich, Nothing but People, 95.
100“compulsory and universal”: Esquire, February 1934, contents page.
100“If you print the story”: “The Sound and the Fury: Foul Blow from Philly,” Esquire, February 1934, 12.
101“Don’t you think having”: “The Sound and the Fury: Citation from Oklahoma History,” Esquire, February 1934, 12.
101“By all means shoot”: “The Sound and the Fury: A Lift from Voltaire,” Esquire, February 1934, 12.
101“your readers would appreciate”: “The Sound and the Fury: Some Like It Hot,” Esquire, February 1934, 12.
101“one of these golden”: Langston Hughes, “A Good Job Gone,” Esquire, April 1934, 142.
101“through correspondence”: CH to JAW, October 31, 1962, DJDC, 17.
101seventy-five dollars: Ibid., 18.
101“a long-term prisoner”: CH, “Crazy in Stir,” Esquire, August 1934, 28.
102a sample of 862 men: W. F. Armine, “London Prison Farm: Unstable Character of Population,” State of Ohio Thirteenth Annual Report of the Department of Public Welfare (December 1935), 286–87.
102“He would see what”: CH, “Crazy in Stir,” 114.
102powerful short story: “Along the Literary Front,” New York Amsterdam News, October 6, 1934, 8.
103Blackie has a “queer feeling”: CH, “To What Red Hell,” Esquire, October 1934, 100.
103“big blonde guy kissing”: Ibid., 101, 122.
104“White faces, gleaming”: Ibid., 100, 122.
104“received the greatest”: MLA, 26.
105On August 2, 1934: “#59623 Himes, Chester” and “#67175 Rico, Prince” files.
105“had a full and complete”: CH to CVV, March 11, 1952.
105“the farm was the way”: CFS, 346; “#59623 Himes, Chester” file.
105the population fluctuated: T. C. Jenkins, “The London Prison Farm,” State of Ohio Fifteenth Annual Report of the Department of Public Welfare (December 1934), 514.
106“so many upbraidings”: Chester B. Himes #59623 to Miss Armine Mail Censor, n.d. [c. 1934], MF.
106“Glad you’re through”: Prince Rico to CH, March 13, 1936, CHP-Y, box 3, folder 9.
107lauded in the press: “Prisoner’s Songs Go into His Opera,” clipping from unknown periodical, January 20, 1935, CHP-Y, box 3, folder 9.
108parole was finally granted: “#59623 Himes, Chester” file.
109“ ‘This can’t be my home’ ”: CH, “On Dreams and Reality,” CH-CSS, 217.
110“We’ll put the big pot”: Joseph Himes to CH, November 24, 1973, JSH, box 6, folder 4.
110the director of research: “Blind Student Awarded Ph.D. by Ohio State,” Atlanta Daily World, July 5, 1938, 1.
110Chester served out the maximum sentence: Polly Johnson, interview with Michel Fabre, n.d., MF, box 6, folder 31.
110“more hysterical”: QH, 66.
111“Several times”: Ibid.
112“with the past kind of living”: Roddy Moon to Henry Lee Moon, July 2, 1936, HLM, box 3, folder 33.
112Chester met Cleveland’s most famous: MMH-DCDJ, 200; Bud Douglass, “Langston Hughes Safe in Cleveland; Denies That He Is Lost in Spain,” Cleveland Call and Post, August 6, 1936, 3.
112living with his mother: “Dates Changed on Little Ham; Opens June 9,” Cleveland Call and Post, June 4, 1936, 7.
112“because I am both a Negro”: “Langston Hughes at Paris Conference,” Cleveland Call and Post, August 5, 1937, 2.
112giving lectures at middle-class teas: “Alpha Art Club,” Cleveland Call and Post, July 2, 1936, 4.
113“America’s principal servant”: CH, “A Salute to The Passing,” Opportunity, March 1939, 75–76.
114“I had it hard”: CH to JAW, October 31, 1962, DCDJ, 17.
114increased his fee: Ibid., 18.
114Jean was living: Jean Plater v. Harry Plater, “Affidavit for Service by Publication,” No. 453701, January 20, 1937, Court of Common Pleas, CUY.
115“I grew to love her too”: QH, 70.
115“gross neglect of duty”: Jean Plater v. Harry Plater, “Petition for Divorce,” No. 453701, March 15, 1937, Court of Common Pleas, CUY.
115on Tuesday, July 13, 1937: CH and Jean L. Plater, Marriage License, No. A43102, CUY.
116“just be a nigger”: CH, “All God’s Chilluns Got Pride,” The Crisis, June 1944, 189.
116“Until then there had been”: QH, 70.
116“They have all admired”: CH to Henry Lee Moon, September 15, 1937, MHLM, box 3, folder “Henry Moon and Chester Himes 1937–1942.”
117“the leading American teacher”: Advertisement, “Fiction Writing,” Thomas H. Uzzell, New York Times Book Review, September 24, 1933, 27; advertisement, “Ten Talks on Fiction Writing,” Thomas H. Uzzell, New York Times Book Review, September 13, 1936, 31.
117“Did You Ever Catch a Moon”: CH, “A Nigger,” typescript with handscript revisions [fragment], CHP-T, box 26, folder 5.
117“outlined in my mind”: CH to CVV, November 23, 1952, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1955.”
117“discerning cosmopolite”: “A New Magazine for Men,” Bachelor, May 31, 1937, 134–135; editorial page, Bachelor, February 1938, 25.
117“You call out to the Negro”: CH, “Scram!” Bachelor, February 1938, 27.
118“enjoy[ed] the recognition”: ATB, 12.
118a career liftoff: Henry Lee Moon, “Liberia Recovers Under New Regime,” New York Times, August 30, 1936, E7; Henry Lee Moon, “Law on Lynching Is Pressed Again,” New York Times, April 18, 1937, 71; Henry Lee Moon, “Housing Problem Is Still Acute,” New York Times, June 20, 1937, 63; Henry Lee Moon, “Policy Game Thrives in Spite of Attacks,” New York Times, July 25, 1937, 56.
118“I could not hire you”: QH, 71.
118“pile of manuscripts”: Henry Lee Moon to Mollie Moon, May 20, 1938, MHLM, box 1, folder “Correspondence.”
119“rather depressing”: Virginia Bird to Gideon Kishur, March 10, 1938, Crowell-Collier Publishing Company Records, box 134, folder 382–401, Manuscript and Archives Division, New York Public Library, New York City.
119“I hope I am not presumptuous”: CH to “Editor American Magazine,” May 22, 1938, ibid.
119“We were very much interested”: American Magazine to CH, May 31, 1938, ibid.
119“It does not occur”: CH, “Statement of Plan of Work” (1944), p. 3, CH-RF.
120“bitterly resentful [of] that fate”: Ibid., p. 5.
120“I am happy to know”: CH to Sterling Brown, May 30, 1938, SAB, box 8, folder “H.”
121“the first clear, pointed”: CH to Brown, November 25, 1938, ibid.
121“What seems ‘tragically desperate’ ”: Ibid.
122“packing in a maze of essentials”: CH to Henry Lee Moon, June 29, 1938, MHLM, box 1, folder “Correspondence.”
12278,000 WPA workers: “Works Progress Administration,” Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, http://ech.case.edu/cgi/article.pl?id=WPA1; “15.2% of All WPA Workers Are Colored,” Cleveland Call and Post, March 17, 1938, 6.
122white-collar work: “Are We to Have a WPA Scandal?,” Cleveland Call and Post, March 24, 1938, 6.
122Chester wrote letters: CH to JAW, October 31, 1962, 18.
122demand the inclusion: “ ‘Colonel Alexander Has Insulted Our Entire Race,’ Says Payne,” Cleveland Call and Post, May 26, 1938, 1.
123“He filled with a recurrence”: CH, “With Malice Toward None,” Crossroad, April 1939. The story is reprinted in CH-CSS; quotation at 51.
124the practice of demoting foremen: “WPA Discrimination,” Cleveland Call and Post, June 30, 1938, 6; “Supervisors, Foremen Using Layoff ‘Authority’ to Prune WPA Rolls of Negro Workers,” Cleveland Call and Post, April 27, 1939, 1; “Harrington Promises Probe of Discrimination in Cleveland WPA Projects,” Cleveland Call and Post May 4, 1939, 1; “18 Month Rule Resurrects a Wave of Discrimination,” Cleveland Call and Post, September 14, 1939, 1.
124Charles Dickinson being appointed: “Ohio WPA Administrator Appoints Negro as Employment Investigator,” Cleveland Call and Post, September 29, 1938, 2.
124“favorable impression”: CH to Henry Lee Moon, June 29, 1938.
124pay jumped to $95: CH to JAW, October 31, 1962, 18.
125“Most of Cleveland’s Negroes”: Ohio Writers’ Project, Ohio: The Ohio Guide (New York: Oxford University Press, 1940), 218.
125“While on the Writers’ Project”: QH, 72.
126She told him about a new book: CH to Richard Wright, n.d. [Christmas 1945] RW, box 99, folder 1393.
126“This’ll be good for you”: Ruth Seid to Michel Fabre, June 23, 1988, MF, box 6, folder 31.
127“an effective campaign for jobs”: Henry Lee Moon, “Negroes Win Help in Fight for Jobs,” New York Times, August 28, 1938, E10.
127“Sam Katz opened a wine store”: Jo Sinclair, “Cleveland’s Negro Problem,” Ken, December 15, 1938, 76, 79.
127“insidious Jewish chauvinism”: CH to Jo Sinclair, December 21, 1945, Jo Sinclair Papers, box 36, folder 14, Boston University, Boston.
127using Chester’s life: Alan Wald, Trinity of Passion: The Literary Left and the Anti-Fascist Crusade (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 242.
128“to catch up on financially”: CH to Henry Lee Moon, August 10, 1938, MHLM, box 1, folder “Correspondence.”
128his $900 annual salary: “Chester Himes,” 1940 U.S. Census, Ohio, Cuyahoga County, April 5, 1940, sheet no. 3A.
128Ohio governor John Bricker: QH, 72.
128“medium for creative talent”: “ ‘Crossroad,’ New Art Magazine Makes Bid for Negro Works,” Cleveland Call and Post, February 16, 1939, 11.
129“My God, politics isn’t fatal”: CH, “A Modern Fable—Of Mr. Slaughter, Mr. McDull, and the American Scene,” Crossroad (summer 1939): np.
130“which would inspire Negro art”: CH to Henry Lee Moon, September 16, 1939, MHLM, box 1, folder “Correspondence.”
130sales of $15 million: “Plane Parts, Tools: Many Companies Gear Operations for Share of Business,” Wall Street Journal, May 18, 1940, 1.
130“what racial prejudice is like”: QH, 72.
130“shunted away”: “Cleveland Plants Ignoring President’s Order, But Are Careful to Make Excuses,” Cleveland Call and Post, August 9, 1941, 1A.
131conversation like a “tonic”: CH to Henry Lee Moon, February 23, 1940, MHLM, box 1, folder “Correspondence.”
131He also wrote the text: CH to Henry Lee Moon, June 30, 1940.
132“Looking Down the Street”: CH, “Looking Down the Street: A Story of Import and Bitterness,” Crossroad, Spring 1940, 85.
13290 percent: Todd Michney, “Changing Neighborhoods: Race and Upward Mobility in Southeast Cleveland 1930–1980,” PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 2004, 93–94.
132mutual friend Langston Hughes: “Langston Hughes Speaks Here Sunday,” Cleveland Call and Post, April 25, 1940, 3; Arnold Rampersad, The Life of Langston Hughes, vol. I, 1902–1941, I, Too, Sing America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 383.
132“attacking Esquire”: C. Himes to Henry Lee Moon, June 1, 1940, MHLM, box 1, folder “Correspondence.”
133“felt called” to enter: Ibid.
133“Bigger Thomas came alive”: CH, “Review and Comment: ‘Native Son’: Pros and Cons,” New Masses, May 21, 1940, 23.
134she was “quite swept away”: C. Himes to Henry Lee Moon, June 22, 1940, MHLM, box 1, folder “Correspondence”; “Karamu Dancers to Show at Worlds Fair: Group to Give Tune Up Performance on June 21st,” Cleveland Call and Post, June 22, 1940, 7.
134saluted with two asterisks: Edward J. O’Brien, ed., The Best Short Stories 1940 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1940), 519.
134“what with Hitler looking westward”: CH to Henry Lee Moon, June 30, 1940.
135Chester began to note her personal traits: Mollie Moon to Henry Lee Moon, July 10, 1940, MLHM, box 1, folder “Correspondence.”
135“big fat mannish woman”: CH to JAW, October 31, 1962, 19.
135he might begin collecting material: CH to Henry Lee Moon, June 1, 1940.
135“I found the job of editing”: CH to Henry Lee Moon, November 19, 1940, MLHM, box 1, folder “Correspondence.”
136“Chester, you have paid”: QH, 71.
137“People coming from”: CH, “This Cleveland: E. 55th–Central,” Cleveland News, November 8, 1940, 12.
137“boys down there blew”: CH to Henry Lee Moon, November 19, 1940.
137steel mill sprawl: CH, “This Cleveland: Broadway at Central at Woodland,” Cleveland News, November 22, 1940, 6.
137“is there not a little of disappointment”: CH, “This Cleveland: Shaker Square,” Cleveland News, November 20, 1940, 10.
138“struggling to inject continuity”: Editorial note, “Face in the Moonlight,” Coronet, February 1941, 63.
138Jellifes entertained a man: Russell Jellife to Zell Ingram, December 17, 1940, Karamu House Papers, box 8, folder 120, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio.
139“poor man’s [Somerset] Maugham”: Charles Poore, “Books of the Times,” New York Times, November 15, 1945, 17.
139Booming and profane: Robert Van Gelder, “An Interview with Mr. Louis Bromfield,” New York Times Book Review, March 29, 1942, 2.
139crammed their apartment: CH to CVV, September 13, 1946, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1946–1947.”
140“queer nonsense”: CH, “Face in the Moonlight,” Coronet, February 1941, 63.
140“Chester B. Himes writes”: Editorial note, “Face in the Moonlight,” 63.
140“one of those periods”: CH to CVV, February 18, 1947, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1946–1947.”
140“I’d hate to see mother”: CH to H. Moon, November 19, 1940.
141“I had the story”: CH to CVV, February 18, 1947.
6. RUIN OF THE GOLDEN DREAM
142on June 5, 1941: CH to Henry Lee Moon, June 27, 1941, MHLM, box 1, folder “Correspondence.”
142“I had to give up”: Ibid.
142“I would be content”: CH to Carl Van Vechten, September 13, 1946, CVV, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester 1946–1947.”
143they were paid $120: Ibid.
143“until I’m numb”: Ivan Scott, Louis Bromfield, Novelist and Agrarian Reformer (Lewiston, U.K.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1998), 356.
143“Them that works, eats”: Ellen Bromfield Geld, The Heritage (1962; repr., Athens: Ohio University Press, 1999), 105.
143“exceedingly hard”: CH to CVV, September 13, 1946.
143“The main reason”: CH to Henry Lee Moon, June 27, 1941.
144“extremely well and vividly”: Ibid.
144“write so well I’d hate”: Ibid.
144three trips from Ohio to Los Angeles: Frederick C. Othman, “Noted Author Has System All His Own,” Washington Post, August 19, 1941, 8; Thomas Brady, “Hollywood Strikes a New ‘Bell,’ ” New York Times, August 24, 1941, 142.
144promised his new butler: CH to Langston Hughes, October 20, 1941, LH, box 30, folder 1531.
144Urging Chester to go west: MMH-DCDJ, 203.
145“tall, gangling man”: CH, Lonely Crusade (1947; repr., New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1997), 168; QH, 98.
145“ ‘There is no place like America’ ”: CH, Lonely Crusade, 174–75.
146“compulsion to agree”: Ibid., 175.
147“I hope that they will”: Leah Moon to Henry Lee Moon, October 17, 1941, HLM, box 3, folder 33.
147by 1944 that figure would jump: Rick Moss, “Not Quite Paradise: The Development of the African American Community in Los Angeles Through 1950,” California History (Fall 1996): 224.
147“a drab panorama”: CH, Lonely Crusade, 15.
147“remote districts”: Langston Hughes to Maxim Lieber, December 17, 1940, Selected Letters of Langston Hughes, ed. Arnold Rampersad and David Roessel (New York: Knopf, 2015), 216.
148so dubbed “Rochester Lane”: Donald Bogle, Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood (New York: Ballantine, 2006), 269.
148“was in those days ten or fifteen years”: Dizzy Gillespie with Al Frazier, To Be or Not to Bop (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979), 248, 243.
148“ten, fifteen, or twenty” cars: CH, “Zoot Riots Are Race Riots,” The Crisis, July 1943, 201.
148California Sanitary Canning Company: “Chester Himes Paints Local Scene in Novel,” Los Angeles Tribune, January 7, 1946; CH-RF.
148“the city a little better”: CH to Hughes, October 20, 1941.
149remembered by the foreman: “Report,” November 25, 1944, pp. 3–4, CH-FBI; “Report,” January 8, 1945, CH-FBI.
149“black people were treated”: QH, 73.
149put Chester’s name first: Langston Hughes to Maurice Murphy, October 11, 1941, LM, box 3, folder “Langston Hughes.”
149An orator and former track star: Walter Gordon, interview with author, April 30, 2010; Welford Wilson, “We White Americans,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 20, 1940, 7; “Athlete Lands City College Office Job,” New York Amsterdam News, September 21, 1935, 1.
149“I was given the works”: CH to JAW, October 31, 1962, DCDJ, 21.
150“a great influence”: Ibid.
150more than a quarter: Gerald Horne, The Final Victim of the Blacklist: John Howard Lawson, Dean of the Hollywood Ten (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 132.
150“Are you anti-Semitic?”: Dalton Trumbo, “Rough Draft of Letter to FBI Agents,” [c. 1944], in Additional Dialogue: Letters of Dalton Trumbo, 1942–1963, ed. Helen Marshall (New York: M. Evans, 1970), 31.
151an African American film production company: John Kinloch to father, September 29, 1941, Charlotta Bass Papers, box 2, folder “John Kinloch,” Southern California Research Library, Los Angeles.
151the word “duplicity”: Henry Lee Moon, “Memoirs: Encounters with the CP,” p. 24, MHLM, box 14, folder “Memoirs.”
151offered analyses: Ella Winter to Loren Miller, March 5, 1939, LM, box 5, folder “Correspondence 1944–1946.”
151“realistically” . . . “social history”: Loren Miller, “Blood Won’t Tell,” LM, box 33, folder 19.
151“burn holes in the toughest skin”: Amina Hassan, Loren Miller: Civil Rights Attorney and Journalist (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2015), 11–12.
152“I don’t know when”: CH to CVV, September 13, 1946.
152Kenneth Littauer: CH to Henry Lee Moon, December 8, 1941, MHLM, box 1, folder “Correspondence.”
152“got to feeling funny about it”: Ibid.
153“things are getting a little pressing”: CH to Henry Lee Moon, December 2, 1941, MHLM, box 1, folder “Correspondence.”
153“This town is getting too hot”: CH to Henry Lee Moon, December 8, 1941.
153apprenticed as a shipfitter trainee: QH, 74–75.
153“I think the suggestion”: Arthur Huff Fausett, “I Write as I See,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 7, 1942, 4; “Suspect in Attack on Woman Lynched by Mob in Missouri,” Los Angeles Times, January 26, 1942, 1; “The Courier’s Double ‘V’ for a Double Victory,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 14, 1942, 1; Lee Finkle, “The Conservative Aims of Militant Rhetoric: Black Protest During World War II,” Journal of American History (December 1973): 694.
154Holland had wowed radio audiences: Frank Daugherty, “ ‘Ninotchka’ Influence Noted; New Negro Tenor for Screen,” Christian Science Monitor, September 13, 1940, 8; Langston Hughes to Arna Bontemps, May 26, 1941, in Selected Letters of Langston Hughes, 82.
154pressure to build black morale: Clayton Koppes and Gregory Black, “Blacks, Loyalty, and Motion Picture Propaganda in World War Two,” Journal of American History (September 1986): 384, 392–93.
155“restriction of Negroes”: Herman Hill, “Change of Attitude Observed,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 8, 1942, 20.
155Hollywood Writers Mobilization: “Chester Himes Paints Local Scene in Novel.”
155“We’ve been discriminating”: “Native Sons,” Communiqué: Hollywood Writers Mobilization for Defense, April 10, 1942, 6, Southern California Library, Los Angeles.
155“I don’t believe we”: Herman Hill, “Change of Attitude Observed,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 8, 1942, 20.
156“I don’t want no niggers”: MMH-DCDJ, 207.
156heralded the appointment: “Phil Carter, Harlem Scribe, in Film Job,” Chicago Defender, October 31, 1942, 21.
156“degrading”: Quoted in Hill, “Change of Attitude Observed,” 20.
15780,000 blacks: Errol Wayne Stevens, Radical L.A.: From Coxey’s Army to the Watts Riots, 1894–1965 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009), 259.
157“unforgettable” May 9: Mary Oyama, “A Nisei Report from Home,” Common Ground, Winter 1946, 26, “Mary Mittwer,” 1940 U.S. Census, California, Los Angeles, sheet no. 7A.
157a similarly committed writer: CH to Henry Lee Moon, May 25, 1942, MHLM, box 1, folder “Correspondence.”
158his unforgiving manner: Brad Pye Jr., “Washington, Johnson, Bradley Hold Rank of Lieutenant,” Los Angeles Times, June 25, 1959, B17.
158notorious for shooting: R. J. Smith, The Great Black Way: Los Angeles in the 1940s and the Lost African American Renaissance (New York: PublicAffairs, 2006), 114–15; Nat Freedland, “A Black Cop in Old L.A. Tells Story,” Los Angeles Times, March 29, 1970, P14; “Bring No Proof: Delegation Complains About Conduct of Policeman,” Los Angeles Times, February 20, 1916, I10; “Vindication for Negro Patrolman,” Los Angeles Times, March 28, 1916, I12; “Ten Policemen Now Awaiting Hearings,” Los Angeles Times, May 4, 1920, I14; “May Be First to Die in New Gas Chamber,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 23, 1938, 12.
158“pitiless bastards”: “Chester Himes” [interview with Michael Mok], in Conversations with Chester Himes, ed. Michel Fabre and Robert Skinner (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1995), 107.
158“how I managed”: Jess Kimbrough, Defender of Angels (New York: Macmillan, 1969), 15; J. Kimbrough, “Georgia Sundown,” Water: A Play in One Act / Georgia Sundown: A Drama in One Act (Los Angeles: Theater Journal Publishing, 1940).
158“much better writer”: CH to Henry Lee Moon, May 25, 1942.
158wrote to Sterling Brown: CH to Sterling Brown, March 15, 1942, SAB, box 8, folder 1930–1949.
159“I have just about come”: CH to Henry Lee Moon, May 25, 1942.
159fifteen hundred or so members: Horne, Final Victim of the Blacklist, 115. According to New York literary Communist Lloyd Brown, Perry claimed that CH actually joined the Party during this period, but was expelled for sexually assaulting white women: Alan Wald, “Narrating Nationalisms: Black Marxism and Jewish Communists Through the Eyes of Harold Cruse,” in Left of the Color Line: Race, Radicalisms, and Twentieth-Century Literature, ed. Bill V. Mullen and James Smethurst (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 156.
160activists like Dorothy Healey: Dorothy Healey and Maurice Isserman, Dorothy Healey Remembers: A Life in the American Communist Party (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 91.
160“as Jim-Crowed”: CH to JAW, October 31, 1962, 21.
160“mental corrosion of race prejudice”: QH, 76.
160thirty-year-old Eluard McDaniel: Alan Wald, Exiles from a Future Time: The Forging of the Mid-Twentieth Century Left (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 285; Adrienne Ruggiero, American Voices from the Great Depression (Tarrytown, N.Y.: Benchmark, 2005), 73–74; Eluard Luchell McDaniel, Bumming in California (New York: Viking, 1937), 112–18.
161“regardless of the capitalist politics”: CH to editor, People’s Daily World, August 14, 1942, 4.
161“Now, in the year 1942”: CH, “Now Is the Time! Here Is the Place!” Opportunity, September 1942, 271.
161“the character of this writer”: Ibid.
162“fight to preserve and make strong”: Ibid., 273–74.
162“qualified white mechanics”: Stevens, Radical L.A., 266.
162“she would mother”: CH, “In the Night,” Opportunity, November 1942, 335, 334.
163“I can revert”: Ibid., 349, 335.
164“Led by Uncle Tom’s son”: CH, “Heaven Has Changed,” The Crisis, March 1943, 83.
164ceramics class: “Los Angeles Defense Workers Learn the Art of Ceramics from U.S.C. Professor,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 11, 1943, 9.
164“respected and included”: QH, 75.
165“When the war is over”: Clore Warne to Fletcher Bowron, May 25, 1943, LM, box 5, folder 1.
165nightsticks on disabled Latino men: Luis Alvarez, The Power of the Zoot: Youth Culture and Resistance During World War II (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), 174.
165“eye-witness of the recent riots”: CH, “Zoot Riots Are Race Riots,” The Crisis, July 1943, 201.
166delinquency suitably corrected: Lawrence E. Davies, “Zoot Suits Become Issue on the Coast,” New York Times, June 13, 1943, E10.
166“the birth of the storm troopers”: CH, “Zoot Riots Are Race Riots,” 201.
166“aimless bridge games”: Smith, The Great Black Way, 100.
166“the compulsion making”: CH to JAW, October 31, 1962, 22.
167“the ruin of a golden dream”: Will Thomas [Bill Smith], The Seeking (New York: A. A. Wyn, 1953), 114, 122.
168“he was that type of mulatto black”: QH, 127.
168“I—I don’t know just when”: CH, “So Softly Smiling,” The Crisis, October 1943, 315.
169“Here I sit”: Mollie Moon to Henry Lee Moon, August 28, 1943, MHLM, box 1, folder “Correspondence.”
169“During the past couple of years”: CH, “Statement of Plan of Work” (1944), p. 1, CH-RF.
170“success as an individual”: Ibid.
170“the hard way”: Ibid., p. 16.
170“dangerous, explosive”: Ibid., p. 18.
170“He knows that the Negro”: Ibid., p. 19.
170“strong and shrewd”: Mr. N. R. Howard, “Letters of Reference—Chester B. Himes,” p. 3, CH-RF.
170“dynamic and comprehensive”: Mr. Henry Lee Moon, “Letters of Reference—Chester B. Himes,” p. 1, CH-RF.
171telegraph the fund: Henry Lee Moon, telegram to Vandi Haygood, February 9, 1944, CH-RF; Alfred Perkins, Edwin Rogers Embree: The Julius Rosenwald Fund, Foundation Philanthropy and American Race Relations (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011), 189.
171“consideration of his own”: Howard, “Letters of Reference,” p. 4.
171“We have never met him”: Mr. Roy Wilkins, “Letters of Reference—Chester B. Himes,” p. 4, CH-RF.
171“The Negro has been”: Patrick Washburn, A Question of Sedition: The Federal Government’s Investigation of the Black Press During World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 101.
171“Hitler ought to get you”: “Singer Charges Police Beating in Georgia City,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 17, 1942, 5; “Beaten in Georgia, Says Roland Hayes,” New York Times, July 17, 1942, 9.
172taking advantage of every contact: “The People We Know,” The War Worker, November 1943, 6.
172The participants included: “Sproul Welcomes Writers Congress,” Los Angeles Times, October 2, 1943, A1; “Racial Tolerance Needed in Laws Writers Told,” Los Angeles Times, October 3, 1943, A1.
172“tarts of the Negro’s daughters”: Koppes and Black, “Blacks, Loyalty, and Motion Picture Propaganda,” 392.
172“Here I am—exhibit A”: Walter White, “People and Places: Writers Congress,” Chicago Defender, October 23, 1943, 15.
172In December, Trumbo would officially: Trumbo, Letters of Dalton Trumbo, 146.
172Rex Ingram had too: Horne, Final Victim of the Blacklist, 159.
173“who have never been permitted”: CH, “The People We Know,” 6.
173“If, after reading”: Ibid., 7.
173The Army called him up: “Report,” February 3, 1945, p. 2, CH-FBI.
173“appeal to carnality”: “Himes Doesn’t Like Musical Sweet ‘N’ Hot,” California Eagle, February 17, 1944, 109.
174“Those that are on the other side”: Ibid.
174“domestic reasons”: QH, 75.
175“It is difficult to express”: CH to Vandi Haygood, April 24, 1944, CH-RF.
175“our author argues brilliantly”: CH, “Negro Martyrs Are Needed,” The Crisis, May 1944, 159.
175“the enforcement of the Constitution”: Ibid., 159.
176“We have not achieved”: Ibid., 174.
176“You will note”: “CHESTER B. HIMES” and “Report,” July 10, 1944, pp. 3–4, CH-FBI; “Report,” January 8, 1945, p. 11, CH-FBI.
176“every morning”: CH, “All God’s Chillun Got Pride,” The Crisis, June 1944, 188, 189.
177“He is proud of their independence”: CH, “Statement of Plan” (1944), p. 17.
177“complexion was black”: CH, “All God’s Chillun,” 189.
178Jean now worked closely with: Christy Fox, “Caravan Programs Outlined,” Los Angeles Times, June 21, 1944, A5.
178“I gave up my good”: Michael Carter, “This Story Had to Be Told,” Afro-American, January 5, 1946, 10.
178“It hurt for my wife”: QH, 75.
178“Shattered” by the “mental corrosion”: Ibid., 76.
179“defiantly” and “without thought”: CH to CVV, February 18, 1948, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
7. TRYING TO WIN A HOME
180“Harlem’s most talked”: Jervis Anderson, This Was Harlem: 1900–1950 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1982), 341, 343.
180“Was Chester drunk?”: QH, 178.
181“tallest and best kept”: CH, “New York 1944” [introduction to 1972 CBS news program and interview], CHP-T, box 29, folder 8.
181Race, Sex and War: “Chester Himes Writes Three Novels, Wins Award,” Chicago Defender, October 14, 1944, 16.
181Henry had left his federal job: “CIO Political Action Committee Names Ex-Clevelander to Staff,” Cleveland Call and Post, April 8, 1944, 1B.
181Sidney Hillman: Bill Cunningham, “On Sidney Hillman and the Political Action Committee,” Atlanta Constitution, July 20, 1944, 9.
182“all of labor’s gains”: “CIO Political Action Committee Names Ex-Clevelander,” 1B.
182he advocated a permanent: “CIO Political Action Committee Supports Negro Rights Action,” Cleveland Call and Post, July 8, 1944, 11A; Henry Lee Moon, “The Truth About PAC,” Chicago Defender, October 21, 1944, 1–2.
182Hastie resigned: “Hastie Threat to Bolt PAC Gets Little Support,” Chicago Defender, August 26, 1944, 1.
182prominent black Communist artists: “Seven Negroes on New Political Action Unit,” New York Amsterdam News, July 22, 1944, A12.
183“strangely religious” elements: QH, 76.
183“This is social equality”: CH to CVV, February 2, 1949, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
183Women’s Division: “Anne Mason Opens Western Tour of Political Action Committee,” Cleveland Call and Post, August 19, 1944, 5A.
183“Brilliant and charming”: Polly Johnson, interview with Michel Fabre, n.d. MF, box 6, folder 31.
183“I lost myself ”: QH, 76.
184“had been a charade”: Kenneth Robert Janken, White: The Biography of Walter White, Mr. NAACP (New York: New Press, 2003), 328; CH, Pinktoes (1961; repr., New York: Dell, 1966). The subplot of the 1961 novel Pinktoes is the furious machinations of the nominal protagonist Mamie Mason to force Juanita Wright, wife of Wallace Wright, “the great Negro race leader of one sixty-fourth Negro blood” who is “a small blond man with a small blond mustache” (pp. 68–69), and who “looked so much like a white man” (82), to attend a party at Mamie’s home.
184“the decadent, rotten sense”: CH, Lonely Crusade (1947; repr., New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 1997), 48.
184“sometimes one of frustration”: Bucklin Moon, “Memoir,” Bucklin Moon Papers, box 1, folder 16, Manuscripts and Archives, Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida.
184worked his way up: “Bucklin Moon,” Publishers Weekly, June 19, 1943, 2309.
184“with a feeling akin”: Bucklin Moon, “On Black Causes/Colleges,” Bucklin Moon Papers, box 1, folder 35.
185“one of the greatest”: Bucklin Moon to Maxim Lieber, November 3, 1944, Maxim Lieber Papers, box 20, folder 1075, Newberry Library, Chicago.
185“strong feeling[s]”: Ibid.
185“too many negative novels”: Bucklin Moon, “The Race Novel,” New Republic, November 16, 1946, 830.
185“that deals with American Negroes”: “Doubleday, Doran Makes First George Washington Carver Award,” Publishers Weekly, June 9, 1945, 2287.
185on October 19, 1944: Robert Smith to CH, August 4, 1969, CHP-T, box 1, folder 8.
186“What frightens me most”: CH, “Democracy Is for the Unafraid,” in Primer for White Folks, ed. Bucklin Moon (New York: Doubleday, 1945), 479.
186“the white man’s sudden consciousness”: Ibid., 482.
186“famed get-togethers”: “Socially Speaking: Last Thursday,” New York Amsterdam News, November 4, 1944, 12A.
186“for the debasement”: “Rev. Grant Reynolds’ Crusade,” Cleveland Call and Post, October 14, 1944, 8B.
187“career from medicine”: “Chester Himes Writes Three Novels,” 16.
187he missed voting: QH, 76.
187“a puritan all my life”: Ibid., 13.
188“not known to be”: SAC Los Angeles, office memorandum, to Director FBI, November 25, 1944, CH-FBI.
188confidential parties: CH to JAW, October 31, 1962, DCDJ, 23.
188“deal with life”: Constance H. Curtis, “About Books: What Is Obscenity,” New York Amsterdam News, April 29, 1944, 10A.
188“a real literature”: Constance H. Curtis, “About Books: Shortage of Negro Authors,” New York Amsterdam News, June 17, 1944, 10A.
188man originally from Oklahoma City: HF, 13.
189Ralph speaking at an event: Arnold Rampersad, Ralph Ellison (New York: Knopf, 2008), 182.
189Ellison had secured a deal: Lawrence Jackson, Ralph Ellison: Emergence of Genius (New York: Wiley, 2002), 299.
190“congenial and attentive”: HF, 14.
190The guests included Cuban writer: “Langston Hughes Gives an International Party Here,” New York Amsterdam News, December 16, 1944, 13A; Langston Hughes to Arna Bontemps, December 8, 1944, in Arna Bontemps/Langston Hughes Letters, 1925–1967, ed. Charles H. Nichols (New York: Paragon, 1990), 176.
190L.A. was his “home town”: Loren Miller to CH, December 27, 1944, LM, box 3, folder 1.
190“reigning in the place”: CH to JAW, October 31, 1962, 23.
191a “very small and prejudiced minority”: Michel Fabre, The Unfinished Quest of Richard Wright, 2nd ed. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 255–56, 264.
191“found me deeply involved”: QH, 76.
191Friends remembered a drunk Chester: Johnson interview.
191“I spent half my time”: CH, “ A Night of New Roses,” Negro Story, December 1945–January 1946, 10.
193“there was no way out”: B. Moon, “The Race Novel,” 831.
193the word “fuck”: CH, manuscript of If He Hollers Let Him Go, p. 4, CHP-Y, box 7, folder 71.
193“ ‘I’m gonna have you’ ”: Ibid.
194rape of Mrs. Taylor: “Blueprint Fight to Nab Rapists of Negro Woman,” Chicago Defender, December 2, 1944, 5.
194“ ‘You can’t insult me’ ”: Chester Himes, manuscript of If He Hollers Let Him Go, pp. 209–10.
196“Her blonde hair”: CH, If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945; repr., New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 1986), 145, 146, 147.
197“so industrialized”: CH, “Make with a Shape,” Negro Story, August–September 1945, 4.
197“a tour of inspection”: “Calif. USO Worker Lauds Local Club,” Philadelphia Tribune, February 24, 1945, 14.
197“roughly in the middle”: CH to Vandi Haygood, March 15, 1945, CH-RF.
197“many social obligations”: “Chester Himes to Finish Second Novel in California,” Los Angeles Tribune, May 5, 1946, clipping in CH-FBI.
198“like Himes’ project much”: Vandi Haygood to Arna Bontemps, March 6, 1944, Arna Bontemps Papers, box 24, folder “Julius Rosenwald Fund, 1938–1949,” Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Library, Syracuse, New York.
198“a wild, drunken week”: QH, 135.
198“very put together”: Constance Webb, Not Without Love (Lebanon, N.H.: University Press of New England, 2003), 146.
198“meek mannered”: Michael Carter, “This Story Had to Be Told: Author of If He Hollers, in Exclusive Interview, Describes West Coast Shipyard Conditions,” Afro-American, January 5, 1946, 5.
198“very progressive”: Donald Bogle, Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood (New York: Ballantine, 2006), 318–19.
198“dancing between Whites”: Hedda Hopper, “Goldwyn Preparing Annapolis Feature: Out of Character,” Los Angeles Times, September 13, 1948, B6.
199“summoned” to Los Angeles: Arna Bontemps to Vandi Haygood, May 8, 1945, Arna Bontemps Papers, box 11, folder “Haygood, William C.”
199Lena Horne: Arna Bontemps to Langston Hughes, n.d. [before June 3, 1945], in Bontemps/Hughes Letters, 182.
199had been promised the Carver Award: Arna Bontemps to Jack Conroy, September 25, 1945, JC, box 3, folder 151.
199“Dr. Carver was”: MMH-DCDJ, 206.
199“I think he is too excited”: Arna Bontemps to Bucklin Moon, June 18, 1945, Arna Bontemps Papers, box 7, folder “Doubleday & Company Inc.”
200announced on June 9: “Doubleday, Doran Makes First George Washington Carver Award,” Publishers Weekly, June 9, 1945, 2287.
200“it seems a little grotesque”: Orville Prescott, “Books of the Times: Review of Mrs. Palmer’s Honey by Fannie Cook,” New York Times, February 8, 1946, 26.
200“One of the women executives”: CH to CVV, September 13, 1946. CH uses nearly the same wording in the novel The End of a Primitive: “Suddenly he thought of the woman editor who, upon reading the galley proofs of his first novel that had been submitted for a prize, said it made her sick, nauseated her” (p. 95) and in the autobiography The Quality of Hurt: “it was rejected because one of the women editors said it nauseated her” (77).
200Clara Claasen: “Doubleday, Doran Gave a Cocktail Party,” Publisher’s Weekly, November 3, 1945, 2051; Al Silverman, The Time of Their Lives (New York: St. Martin’s, 2008), 205.
201on July 19: CH to Dorothy Elvidge, July 19, 1945, CH-RF.
202telephoned Vandi Haygood: Vandi Haygood to Bucklin Moon, July 30, 1945, Julius Rosenwald Papers, box 436, folder 12, John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library, Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee.
202vice president and the legal department: CH to CVV, September 13, 1946.
202“crazy cousins”: Mollie Moon to Henry Lee Moon, September 17, 1945, MHLM, box 1, folder “Correspondence.”
203died of a cerebral hemorrhage: Estelle B. Himes, Death Certificate #53275, ODH.
203cried hysterically: Johnson interview.
203on October 2: Fannie Wiggins, Death Certificate #57902, ODH.
203“a woman of iron will”: QH, 161.
204“a tough, controversial”: “Doubleday, Doran Books for a Big Autumn,” Publishers Weekly, September 22, 1945.
204“A Real Shocker!”: Advertisement, If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes, Publishers Weekly, September 29, 1945.
204a “surprised” Chester: CH to CVV, September 13, 1946.
204“remember me kindly”: Henry Lee Moon to Mollie Moon, October 22, 1945, MHLM, box 1, folder “Correspondence.”
205threw parties for white authors: “Doubleday, Doran Gave a Cocktail Party,” 2051; “Doubleday, Doran Gave a Party,” Publishers Weekly, March 3, 1945, 1016.
205“I don’t like it one bit”: Henry Lee Moon to Mollie Moon, October 31, 1945, MHLM, box 1, folder “Correspondence.”
205“a mixture of polemics”: Charles Poore, “Books of the Times: If He Hollers Let Him Go,” New York Times, November 1, 1945, 21.
205“amid the clinking”: Dan Burley, “Dan Burley’s Back Door Stuff: Modern Mose on Sugar Hill,” New York Amsterdam News, November 10, 1945, 14.
206“I consented to go”: CH to CVV, September 13, 1946.
206“nerve-wracking” tension: Henry Lee Moon to Mollie Moon, November 5, 1945, MHLM, box 1, folder “Correspondence.”
206“presenting a true picture”: Earl Conrad, “A Lady Laughs at Fate,” Chicago Defender, January 5, 1946, 9.
206“Chester Himes, author”: “George Washington Carver School: Meet the Author” [flyer], Countee Cullen—Harold Jackman Memorial Collection, box 2, folder 13, Atlanta University, Atlanta.
206“fan letter”: Ruth Seid to CH, November 15, 1945, RW, box 99, folder 1393.
207“very much excited”: Horace Cayton to Richard Wright, October 29, 1945, RW, box 95, folder 1255.
207“the paralyzing fear”: Horace Cayton, “ ‘If He Hollers’: Los Angeles Writer Has Produced Powerful Novel of American Life,” Pittsburgh Courier, November 3, 1945, 7.
207“the ticket-of-admission”: “Ohioan Joins Nation’s Top-Flight Novelists,” Cleveland Call and Post, December 1, 1945, 9A.
207“the calculated castration of prejudice”: Constance Curtis, “About Books and Authors: If He Hollers Let Him Go,” New York Amsterdam News, November 17, 1945, 23.
207“tells so accurately”: Roy Wilkins, “Book Reviews: ‘Blind Revolt: If He Hollers Let Him Go,’ ” The Crisis, November 1945, 362.
208“Jerky in pace”: Richard Wright, “Two Novels of the Crushing of Men, One White, One Black,” PM, November 25, 1945, M8.
208Wright received Chester: Richard Wright, December 14, 1945, “Diary 1945,” RW, box 113, folder 1812.
209“Nothing can hurt me”: Michel Fabre, “Interview with Chester Himes” [1963], in Conversations with Chester Himes, ed. Michel Fabre and Robert Skinner (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1995), 7.
209“The manner in which”: CH to Richard Wright, n.d. [December 1945], RW, box 99, folder 1393.
209“a wonderful time”: CH to Richard Wright, n.d. [December 25, 1945], ibid.
209Joseph Himes Jr. came to town: “Afro Visitors,” Afro-American, January 5, 1946, 12; CH to Richard and Ellen Wright, December 27, 1945, RW, box 99, folder 1393.
210according to Webb: Constance Webb Pearlstein to Lesley Himes, May 12, 1997, and December 1, 1998, LPH, box 1, folder 16.
210“used to pump frustration”: CH to Jo Sinclair, December 21, 1945, Jo Sinclair Papers, box 36, folder 14, Boston University, Boston.
210“blues school of writers”: Earl Conrad, “American Viewpoint: Blues School of Literature,” Chicago Defender, December 22, 1945, 11.
210“I developed a hatred”: Ibid.
211requested that the director: SAC Los Angeles, memorandum to F.B.I. Director, December 5, 1945, CH-FBI.
8. MONKEY AN’ THE LION
213“crazy racialist”: E. Franklin Frazier, Federal Bureau of Investigation File # 138-825, Section 4.
213“It is not a question”: E. Franklin Frazier, “Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City, by St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton,” Social Forces (March 1946): 362.
213He received $2000: CH to CVV, September 13, 1946, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1946–1947.”
213“limited opportunities”: Isaac Rosenfeld, “Best Intentions,” New Republic, December 31, 1945, 910.
213“the one clouded spot”: “Ohioan Joins Nation’s Top-Flight Novelists,” Cleveland Call and Post, December 1, 1945, 9A.
213“If he asked me”: CH, If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945; repr., New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 1986), 81.
213“contribution to American literature”: Walter White, “People, Politics and Places,” Chicago Defender, December 22, 1945, 13.
214“stout weapon”: Arthur P. Davis, “With a Grain of Salt: Rev. of If He Hollers Let Him Go,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, February 9, 1946, 6.
214“see the progress made”: Ruth Jett, review of If He Hollers Let Him Go, by Chester Himes, Congress View, December 1945, 8.
214“there is a hell of a lot”: Eugene Gordon, “Powerful Novel of Negro Life,” Daily Worker, December 30, 1945, 9.
214a time of “self-flagellation”: Alan Wald, Trinity of Passion: The Literary Left and the Anti-Fascist Crusade (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 72.
214to warn about “maneuvering”: CH to Richard Wright, n.d. [Monday], RW, box 99, folder 1393.
215Mrs. Palmer’s Honey is a book”: Advertisement for Mrs. Palmer’s Honey, Publishers Weekly, January 5, 1946, 1.
215“[Mrs. Palmer’s Honey] is a novel”: “From Where I Sit,” advertisement for Mrs. Palmer’s Honey, Saturday Review, February 9, 1946.
216“unreasonable” complaints: CH to William Targ, April 4, 1954, CHP-T, box 9, folder 12.
216“the veiled references”: CH to CVV, September 13, 1946.
216“black corner”: MMH-DCDJ, 187.
216“someone in the firm”: CH to William Targ, April 4, 1954.
216“I believe conclusively”: CH to Wright, n.d. [Monday].
217“treated us like stepchildren”: Arna Bontemps to Jack Conroy, September 25, 1945, JC, box 3, folder 151.
217“the only change I would consider”: CH, “Second Guesses for First Novelists: Chester B. Himes If He Hollers Let Him Go,” Saturday Review of Literature, February 26, 1946, 9.
217“New York Critics have never”: CH to William Targ, April 6, 1954, CHP-T, box 6, folder 1.
217“the bitter cries”: Walter White, “Negro Heroes in Fiction,” Chicago Defender, February 23, 1946, 15.
218sold 13,211 hardcovers: Robert A. Smith to CH, August 4, 1969, CHP-T, box 1, folder 8.
218gathered to “beat that boy”: CH to Wright, n.d. [Monday].
219“the important people to himself”: CH to JAW, October 31, 1962, in DCDJ, 24.
219“invariably taken for a coon”: Edward White, The Tastemaker: Carl Van Vechten and the Making of Modern America (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014), 48.
219“it is the only hope”: Ibid., 164.
220“the undisputed downtown authority”: Emily Bernard, Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, 1925–1964 (New York: Knopf, 2001), xvii.
220“pompous” . . . “hysterical”: MMH-DCDJ, 188.
220his own series of photographs: CH to CVV, n.d. [March 22, 1946], CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1946–1947.”
220“calm and serene”: CH to CVV, June 25, 1946, ibid.
220“The Boiling Point”: CH and Joseph Himes, “The Boiling Point,” Afro-American, March 9, 1946, 4.
220New York Public Library: “Books—Authors,” New York Times, March 16, 1946, 11.
221“citizens of the communist-dominated”: CH, “Negro Martyrs Are Needed,” The Crisis, May 1944, 159.
222“other Negroes own”: CH, “Journey Out of Fear,” Tomorrow, June 1949, 38.
222blamed the cuts to the book: CH to Richard Wright, May 7, 1946, RW, box 99, folder 1393.
223“chatted with us”: CH to CVV, September 13, 1946.
223“sit down to a table”: QH, 78.
223“brutal and vicious”: Ibid.
223“I hope to be following”: CH to CVV, May 12, 1946, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes Chester B. 1946–1947.”
223arriving on May 7: CH to Wright, May 7, 1946.
224“modern version of a sharecropper’s shanty”: Ibid.
224“I remember that summer”: QH, 93.
224“no publisher would”: Bucklin Moon, “Book Boom,” Negro Digest, April 1946, 79.
224“a better relationship”: CH to CVV, June 10, 1946, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes Chester B. 1946–1947.”
225“blemishes, marks, scars”: Ibid.
225reputedly sent him a long saga: CH to CVV, September 13, 1946.
225Doubleday agreed: CH to CVV, December 4, 1946, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes Chester B. 1946–1947.”
225“as it nears the end”: CH to CVV, July 19, 1946, ibid.
225“absolute exhaustion”: CH to CVV, August 12, 1946, ibid.
225his father’s costly operation: Statement of Charges, Mr. Joseph S. Himes, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, August 6, 1946, and January 25, 1947, CHP-T, box 5, folder 15.
226“Few things that ever happened”: CH to CVV, August 12, 1946.
226Chester airmailed: CH to CVV, August 30, 1946, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1946–1947.”
226“quick-tempered but charming”: CVV to CH, September 4, 1946, CHP-T, box 6, folder 11.
226“tremendous and powerful”: CH to CVV, September 4, 1946, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1946–1947.”
226“felt a sense of inferiority”: CH, Lonely Crusade (1947; repr., New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 1997), 294.
226“that beaten, whorish look”: Ibid., 7.
227she “hated” the novel: QH, 93.
227“I often wondered”: Ibid.
227They checked in: CH to CVV, October 14, 1946, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1946–1947.”
227“no great shakes as a success”: “Angry Author from Brooklyn,” Ebony, July 1946, 48.
227“too well-heeled”: QH, 96; Constance Webb, Not Without Love (Lebanon, N.H.: University Press of New England, 2003), 174.
227“finishing touches”: CH to Langston Hughes, October 28, 1946, LH, box 80, folder 1531.
228“become a free man”: C.S., “Report on LONELY CRUSADE by Chester Himes,” AAK.
228“raw and fiery”: M.R., “Second Report on A Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes,” AAK.
228“one of the most dramatic”: Mrs. Blanche Knopf, “Letters of Reference—Chester B. Himes,” p. 3, CH-RF.
228“southern liberals”: Bucklin Moon, “The Race Novel,” New Republic, November 16, 1946, 831.
229“travel abroad for a year”: CH to William C. Haygood, November 7, 1946, CH-RF.
229“the immediate influence”: Chester Himes, “Statement of Plan of Work” (1946), CH-RF.
229“the good food”: Ralph and Fanny Ellison to CH, February 11, 1972, CHP-T, box 3, folder 10.
229“Lenin’s Principles of Marxism”: CH to Ralph Ellison, November 12, 1946, RE, box 52, folder “Hi” miscellaneous.
230“certain general aspects”: Ralph Ellison, draft letter to Horace Cayton, n.d., RE, box 41, folder “Cayton, Horace”; Ralph Ellison, “Richard Wright’s Blues” (1945), in Shadow and Act (New York: Random House, 1964), 78; Lawrence Jackson, Ralph Ellison: Emergence of Genius (New York: Wiley, 2002), 342.
231“the certainty of a crushing fate”: Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, trans. Justin O’Brien (New York: Knopf, 1955), 54.
231“not by consolation”: Ellison, “Richard Wright’s Blues,” 90.
231“learnedly and vehemently”: CH, Lonely Crusade, 61.
231“one of our best times”: Ralph and Fanny Ellison to CH, February 11, 1972.
232“Hope it didn’t”: Jean Himes to Fanny Ellison, December 12, 1946, RE, box 52, folder “Hi” miscellaneous.
232“I am intolerant”: CH to CVV, May 23, 1947, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes Chester B. 1946–1947.”
232“long and steadily”: CH to William C. Haygood, December 30, 1946, CH-RF.
232On December 21: “Jilted, He Shoots Girl, Kills Self: E. Side Businessman Dies of Self-Inflicted Wounds in Daylight Murder Attempt,” Cleveland Call and Post, December 21, 1946, 1A.
232“I want to go to Europe”: CH, “Statement of Plan of Work” (1946), p. 2, CH-RF.
232“I wish that I could have been more convincing”: CH to William C. Haygood, December 30, 1946.
232Chester resubmitted: “Himes, Chester: Manuscript Record,” AAK.
232“Himes has done everything”: C. S., “Report on Revision of Chester Himes’ LONELY CRUSADE,” AAK.
233“experiencing a sense of letdown”: CH to William C. Haygood, n.d. [c. February 2, 1947], CH-RF.
233“the circle of restraint”: CH to CVV, February 18, 1947, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1946–1947.”
233“Waldorf of Harlem”: “The Waldorf of Harlem,” Ebony, April 1946, 8.
233“secret understanding”: QH, 116.
234“No publisher is likely”: CVV to CH, February 19, 1947, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1946–1947.”
234“artistic flow of language”: CH to William C. Haygood, n.d. [c. February 2, 1947].
234small photography exhibit: Jean Himes to CVV, March 19, 1947, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
234Blassingame requested a $2000 advance: Lurton Blassingame to Clinton Simpson, April 14, 1947, AAK.
235“We simply must get away”: CH to CVV, June 10, 1947, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1946–1947.”
235“riding out another”: Will Thomas [Bill Smith], The Seeking (New York: A. A. Wyn, 1953), 130.
236“I do not see a very”: Ibid.
236In Smith’s kitchen: Ibid., 191.
236“You know: give us”: CVV to Langston Hughes, May 9, 1947, in Bernard, Remember Me to Harlem, 245.
236“I expect by now”: Langston Hughes to CVV, May 13, 1947, ibid., 246.
236“Most of the people”: Langston Hughes to Blanche Knopf, August 26, 1947, LH, box 97, folder 1823–1830.
237“What he has to say”: Richard Wright, “If I had the power,” June 5, 1947, AAK.
237“this fine statement”: CH to Richard Wright, June 14, 1947, RW, box 99, folder 1393.
237“beautifully written”: Langston Hughes, “Here to Yonder: One Old One New,” Chicago Defender, May 17, 1947, 14; Horace Cayton, “A Terrifying Cross Section of Chicago,” Chicago Tribune, May 4, 1947, B3.
237“marital conflict”: CH to Richard Wright, n.d. [c. June 16, 1947], RW, box 99, folder 1393.
237“Chester Himes’ Lonely Crusade”: Richard Wright, “COPY OF BLURB FROM ‘RICHARD WRIGHT,’ ” June 24, 1947, AAK.
238“Honestly, it is rather nice”: CH to CVV, n.d. [c. August 8, 1947], box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1946–1947.”
238“a great work of art”: Horace Cayton to William Cole, August 18, 1947, AAK.
238“this novel boasts”: CVV to William Cole, n.d., AAK.
239“happy memories”: “People Who Read and Write,” the New York Times Book Review, August 10, 1947, 8.
239“among the most promising”: “Books: ‘A Negro’s Bitter Pen,’ ” Newsweek, September 8, 1947, 82.
240“fustle and bustle”: CH to CVV, September 10, 1947, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1946–1947.”
240“Remember, son, New York”: QH, 100.
240“tightly constructed”: Constance Curtis, “About Books and Authors: Rev. of Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes,” New York Amsterdam News, September 13, 1947, 11.
240“the story has power”: Arna Bontemps, review of Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes, New York Herald Tribune, September 7, 1947, 8.
240“terrible and tragic”: Marian Sims, “A Life Scarred by Fear: Rev. of Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes,” Atlanta Journal, September 7, 1947, clipping in AAK.
240“The victim is the classic”: John Farrelly, review of Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes, New Republic, October 6, 1947, 550.
240“I didn’t like Lonely Crusade”: Willard Motley to CH, September 3, 1947, in James R. Giles and Jerome Klinkowitz, “The Emergence of Willard Motley in Black American Literature,” Negro American Literature Forum 6 (Summer 1972): 32
241“regret exceedingly”: CH to Willard Motley, n.d. [c. mid-September 1947], MF, box 2, folder 2.
241“We learn early that Lee”: Williard [sic] Motley, “Book Day: Rev. of Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes,” Chicago Sun, October 1, 1947, clipping in AAK.
241“some white people”: CH, Lonely Crusade, 361.
242“closer to the ofays”: Ed Reeves to CH, n.d. [c. January 1972], CHP-T, box 5, folder 12.
242“Gordon—and his creator Himes”: “Time to Count Your Blessings,” Ebony, November 1947, 44.
242“It has been rumored”: “Books of the Day: Rev. of Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes,” The People’s Voice, September 20, 1947.
242“a Negro intellectual”: Martin Harvey, “Worker’s Bookshelf: Rev. of Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes,” The Militant, November 24, 1947, clipping in AAK.
242“It was not that the Communist Party”: CH, Lonely Crusade, 255.
243“I cannot recall”: Lloyd L. Brown, “White Flag,” New Masses, September 9, 1947, 18.
243“extreme leftists”: Emerson Price, “New Book by Ex-Clevelander Arouses Controversy Among Critics,” Cleveland Press, November 15, 1947, clipping in AAK.
243“Hatred reeks through”: Stoyan Christowe, review of Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes, Atlantic Monthly, October 1947, 650.
243“bound to stir up”: “Books in Brief,” Forum, October 1947, 249.
243“Such writing”: Milton Klonsky, “The Writing on the Wall: Rev. of Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes,” Commentary, February 1948, 190.
244“sub conscious disturbances”: Chester Himes, “Author’s Protest,” Commentary, March 1948, 474.
244“is one colored person”: J. Saunders Redding, “Book Review: ‘Dear Editor’ by Chester Himes,” Afro-American, January 3, 1948, 4.
244“For the most part”: Ralph Ellison to Ida Guggenheimer, October 8, 1947, RE, box 49, folder “Guggenheimer, Ida.”
245“very poor stuff”: Ida Guggenheimer to Ralph Ellison, October 22, 1947, RE, box 49, folder “Guggenheimer, Ida.”
245“I read the old Himes book”: Stanley Edgar Hyman to Ralph Ellison, October 1, 1947, RE, box 51, folder “Hyman, Stanley Edgar.”
245“Personally I was disappointed”: Ralph Ellison to Richard Wright, February 1, 1948, RW, box 97, folder 1314.
245“Could he fear”: Ibid.
245“It was then”: QH, 102.
246“I will never change”: CH to Richard Wright, October 19, 1952, RW, box 99, folder 1393.
9. INFLICTING A WOUND UPON HIMSELF
247The hardcover sales petered out: CH to CVV, n.d. [c. May 1948], CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
247earned only $1701.89: Ray Meyer, memorandum to Mr. [J. C.] Lesser, November 26, 1947, AAK.
247“a debit balance”: J. C. Lesser, memorandum to Mr. Braunstein and Mr. Meyer, February 27, 1948, AAK.
247“Advances against royalties”: Lurton Blassingame to J. C. Lesser, December 9, 1947, AAK.
248“needed support badly”: QH, 102.
248“It is a great self punishment”: CH to CVV (“Just a line”), n.d. [c. February 1948], CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
248“psychological processes”: CH to Elizabeth Ames, n.d. [c. late February 1948], Yaddo Papers Collection, box 254, folder “Chester Himes,” Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library, New York City.
249“won’t take me long”: CH to CVV (“Just a line”) [c. February 1948].
249“a siege of virus X”: CH to CVV (“Thank you for writing”), n.d. [c. April 1948], CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
249Randolph and Reynolds conveyed: “Civil Disobedience Campaign Outlined,” New York Amsterdam News, April 3, 1948, 1; C. P. Trussell, “Congress Told UMT Racial Bars Would Unleash Civil Disobedience,” New York Times, April 1, 1948, 1.
249“mass civil disobedience”: CH, letter to the editor, Cleveland Call and Post, April 24, 1948, 4B; CH, “Likes Randolph Plan,” Chicago Defender, June 12, 1948, 14.
249“sugar boy”: CH, “These People Never Die,” New York Amsterdam News, May 29, 1948, 24.
249“I don’t have any”: CH to CVV (“Thank you for writing”), n.d. [c. April 1948].
250a nefarious and significant character: James Baldwin, “History as Nightmare: Review of Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes,” New Leader, October 25, 1947, 11.
250“misinformation trimmed with insults”: W. A. Swanberg, Luce and His Empire (New York: Scribner’s, 1972), 399. For a useful assessment of MacArthur, see Richard Halberstam, The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War (New York: Hyperion, 2007), 102–37.
250“guest list”: Elizabeth Ames to CH, April 5, 1948, Yaddo Papers, box 254, folder “Chester Himes.”
251had been slave quarters: Marjory Peabody Waite, Yaddo: Yesterday and Today (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.: Yaddo, 1933), 13.
251typed admonitory notes: John Cheever, “John Cheever,” in Eleanor Clark, John Cheever, Malcolm Cowley, Alfred Kazin, Hortense Calisher, and Gail Godwin, Six Decades at Yaddo (1986; repr., Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008), 2–3.
251“should have come before”: Elizabeth Ames to Malcolm Cowley, May 23, 1942, Malcolm Cowley Papers, box 2, folder 86, Midwest Writers Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago.
251“one or two weird things”: Elizabeth Ames to Malcolm Cowley, September 5, 1947.
252“the formal integration”: Micki McGee, “Creative Power: Yaddo and the Making of American Culture,” in Yaddo: Making American Culture (New York: New York Public Library and Columbia University, 2008), 10.
252“I do not object”: Edward Sweeney to Elizabeth Ames, June 18, 1942, Yaddo Papers, box 255, folder 29.
252“we have decided”: “Anonymous note in Horace Cayton’s Yaddo file,” April 9, 1962, Yaddo Papers, box 234, folder 23.
252“It is an ideal place”: CH to CVV, May 12, 1948, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
252“beaming Sybarites”: Clark et al., Six Decades at Yaddo, 21.
252“thirteenth century” Catholic girl: Brad Gooch, Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor (Boston: Little, Brown, 2009), 156.
253“a coiled Spring”: Joan Schenkar, The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith (New York: St. Martin’s, 2009),255.
253Highsmith followed Chester: “Notebook/Cahier,” 11–30 May 1948, A-05/17, January 1948 to July 1948, Patricia Highsmith Papers, Swiss Literary Archives, Bern, Switzerland. Schenkar prefers to have Himes attempt to kiss Highsmith in her room, and slightly mistranslates the passage. The word in question is “sienem.”
253“Maybe you remember”: Patricia Highsmith to CH, January 10, 1966, CHP-T, box 4, folder 1.
253“I feel I have”: Schenkar, Talented Miss Highsmith, 257.
254“I was sitting here”: CH to Patricia Highsmith, n.d. [c. April 1965], CHP-T, box 4, folder 1.
254“the boy’s development of homosexuality”: CH to CVV, n.d. [c. May 12, 1948].
254“The Individual in”: “Lonely Crusade Author Speaks at Mandel Hall,” Chicago Defender, May 8, 1948, clipping in AAK.
255“the essential necessity”: CH, “The Dilemma of the Negro Novelist in the U.S.,” in Beyond the Angry Black, ed. John Williams (New York: Cooper Square, 1969), 52.
255“be like inflicting”: Ibid., 53.
255“Any American Negro’s”: Ibid., 54, 56, 57.
255“a dead silence”: QH, 104.
255“Until the period”: Ibid.
255“although I might”: CH to Yves Malartic, May 27, 1952, MF, box 7, folder 4.
256“there has been a lot”: Ames to Cowley, July 26, 1948, Malcolm Cowley Papers, box 2, folder 86, Midwest Writers Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago.
256“a man going home”: CH, “Da-Da-Dee,” CH-CSS, 370.
256“Some day he’d have to”: CH, The Primitive (New York: Signet, 1955), 55.
256“a famous writer”: CH, “Da-Da-Dee,” CH-CSS, 367, 370.
257“felt more like just lying”: CH, The Primitive, 60.
257“desperate need”: CH to CVV, June 9, 1948, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
257“ill and our need urgent”: CH to Blanche Knopf, June 11, 1948, AAK.
257“This is a rather unusual request”: Blanche Knopf to CH, June 14, 1948, AAK.
257the term “atomalypse”: CH to Blanche Knopf, June 17, 1948, AAK.
258“a good many now”: Ames to Cowley, July 26, 1948.
258“felt truly sorry”: QH, 104.
258“The support of the family”: QH, 104–5.
258“If I can spend this winter”: CH to CVV, n.d. (“It has really been a source”), n.d. [c. late summer 1948], CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
259Cayton had tried to get off alcohol: Will Thomas [Bill Smith], The Seeking (New York: A. A. Wyn, 1953), 236.
259“moment of lucidity”: CH to CVV, December 22, 1948, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
259“I think in many ways”: Ibid.
260“an autobiographical novel til”: CH to CVV, October 15, 1948, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
260“smutty and profane”: CH to CVV, February 2, 1949, ibid.
260“I know what I have”: CH to CVV, March 24, 1949, ibid.
260the fight to have Norman Mailer’s: Mary Dearborn, Mailer (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999), 53.
261New studies by researchers: While Kinsey began breaking taboos about sexuality early in the 1940s, especially with “Criteria for a Hormonal Explanation of the Homosexual,” Journal of Clinical Endocrinology (May 1941): 424–28, it was at the end of 1947 that popular magazines began to showcase the research, in such articles as Albert Deutsch’s “The Sex Habits of American Men,” Harper’s Magazine, December 1947, 493, and Harold Clemenko, “Toward a Saner Sex Life,” Look, December 9, 1947, 106–7.
26137 percent of American men: Alfred Kinsey et al., Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1948), 656.
261“I had done it”: CFS, 337.
262“ ‘Everyone else seems’ ”: Ibid., 290–91.
263“inclusion in the social”: CH, “Journey Out of Fear,” Tomorrow, June 1949, 42.
263“a subtly dishonest book”: CH to JAW, October 31, 1962, DCDJ, 26.
263after Collier’s accepted: CH, “A Short History of a Story,” The Crisis, November 1949, 307–8.
263“like the Bronx set down”: QH, 108.
264“Life there was like”: Ibid., 119.
264“there was a bit of unpleasantness”: Ibid., 120.
265“Believers in democracy”: “Chester B. Himes Delivers Address to N.C.C. Group,” Durham Morning Herald, July 10, 1950, 2:4; “Negro Novelist Slated to Speak at N.C.C. Today: Chester B. Himes Serves as Adviser to Writing Class,” Durham Morning Herald, July 9, 1950, 1:4
265“no good book”: Herbert A. Weinstock to CH, June 27, 1950, AAK; Langston Hughes, “Some Practical Observations: A Colloquy” Phylon (4th quarter 1950): 307–11.
266deciding to drop the Epps case: “Local Negroes Drop Plan to Challenge State Law,” Durham Morning Herald, July 13, 1950, 2:1. CH misleadingly characterized the paper’s portrait of the case and the coverage given him in his memoir, perhaps a backhanded slap at the prominence of the newspaper in his lecture series.
266“the South land”: Jean Himes to CVV, July 19, 1950, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951”; QH, 124.
266“a celebration memorable”: QH, 125.
266declining to publish it: CH to CVV, July 25, 1950, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
266telephoned Margot Johnson: CH to CVV, April 4, 1951, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
267she sold the foreign rights: CH, contract, La Page International for Editions Corréa, December 23, 1950, CHP-T, box 20, folder 1.
267he was so rude: Anne Smith, interview with author, June 3, 2013.
267“fooling around”: CH to CVV, August 1, 1950, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
268“deliberately dishonest”: CH to JAW, October 3, 1962, DCDJ, 26.
268“pleasant” Bridgeport: QH, 111.
268speeding ticket: CH, speeding ticket, March 3, 1951, MF, box 7, folder 13.
268“You could be as much”: CH to William Targ, April 6, 1954, CHP-T, box 6, folder 1.
269“Legally I am only indebted”: Memo to B[lanche] W K[nopf] from JCL[esser], “re Chester Himes,” February 8, 1963, AAK. CH’s letter from June 24, 1951, referred to in the memorandum, is missing.
270he would press for money: Ruth Seid to Michel Fabre, June 1, 1988, MF, CHP-T, box 6, folder 31; CH to Lurton Blassingame, n.d. [c. May 1955], CHP-T, box 1, folder 9.
270“That incident shook”: QH, 115.
271“Of course, . . . they had no suitable opening”: Ibid., 131.
271“to lose confidence in myself”: Ibid., 132.
272“I believe the book”: Yves Malartic to CH, December 6, 1951, MF, box 7, folder 4.
272“Please, by all means”: CH to Yves Malartic, December 29, 1951, ibid.
272“My wife and I”: CH to Yves Malartic, n.d. [c. June 1952], ibid.
273“Jean stopped coming”: QH, 132.
10. CADILLACS TO COTTON SACKS
274“Thanks greatly”: CH to Ralph Ellison, March 25, 1952, RE, box 52, folder “Hi Miscellaneous.”
275“the first allegorical Negro novel”: Horace Cayton, “Newest ‘Hit’ Author Ralph Ellison Gives Literary World New Form, Writing Style,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 10, 1952, 9.
275“always considered”: QH, 132.
275“I’m like an animal”: CH to CVV, February 15, 1952, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1955.”
275“devastatingly penetrating”: Ibid.
276as Van Vechten told people: CVV to JAW, August 2, 1962, DCDJ, 1.
276“the first thing I desired”: QH, 135.
276to Europe “with a friend”: CH to Yves Malartic, April 14, 1952, MF, box 7, folder 4.
277“penetrating as the moment”: WT to CH (“Darling: I have your special here”), n.d. Thursday noontime [c. summer 1955], CHP-T, box 6, folder 5.
277Duggan was found dead on the sidewalk: “Police Seek Cause of Duggan’s Plunge,” Christian Science Monitor, December 22, 1948, 11.
277solid-marble sinks: “Fifth Avenue Mansion Gets New Role,” New York Times, December 16, 1951, 49.
278“he did all he could”: CH to William Targ, April 4, 1954, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20.
278charged Moon with being “subversive”: “Editor Loses Job, Charges a ‘Smear,’ ” New York Times, April 18, 1953, 9.
278“nymphomaniac”: Polly Johnson, interview with Michel Fabre, n.d., MF, box 6, folder 31.
278“impatient for the money”: CH to Yves Malartic, n.d. [c. June 1952], MF, box 7, folder 4.
278For $2000: Ben Zevin to CH, October 16, 1954, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20, QH, 135.
279delivering the preface: Richard Wright, preface, La Croisade de Lee Gordon (Paris: Editions Corréa, 1952), 8.
280“the only one over whom”: CH to Richard Wright, October 19, 1952, RW, box 99, folder 1393.
280“Working hard”: CH to CVV, November 11, 1952. CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1956.”
281“a long time ago”: CH to CVV, November 23, 1952, ibid.
281“I think Vandi hurt”: WT to CH, August 25, 1955, CHP-T, box 6, folder 4.
282“really ‘went’ for”: CH to CVV, n.d. [c. January 1953], CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1956.”
282Having secured on December 31: Zevin to CH, October 16, 1954.
282“magnificent ruin” and “tragic”: Horace Cayton to CH, March 18, 1953, MF, box 2, folder 8.
283photo-dramatized by Parks: Gordon Parks, “A Man Becomes Invisible,” Life, August 25, 1952, 8–11.
283“an abler U.S. Negro novelist”: “Native Doesn’t Live Here Anymore: Rev. of The Outsider by Richard Wright,” Time, March 30, 1953, 92.
283“I have joined”: HF, 14.
283“great like Shakespeare”: Horace Cayton and Ralph Ellison, interview notes, September 8, 1968, MF, box 46, folder 56.
284“the best of all”: CH to Yves Malartic, February 26, 1953, MF, box 7, folder 4.
284“too chicken”: Ralph Ellison to Horace Cayton, n.d. [winter 1957], RE, box 41, folder “Cayton, Horace.”
284“was mad and acting”: Cayton and Ellison, interview notes.
284“a private misunderstanding”: MLA, 124.
284“riotous affair”: Ralph Ellison to Richard Wright, January 21, 1953, RW, box 97, folder 1314.
285“By far the most intense”: Advertisement for The Third Generation, New York Times Book Review, January 10, 1954, 9.
285“When she went to Chicago”: QH, 136.
286“rough hewn”: Gertrude Martin, “Book Reviews: Rev. of Cast the First Stone by Chester Himes,” Chicago Defender, January 24, 1953, 11; Paul Sampson, “Prison Story Misses Its Mark,” Washington Post, February 8, 1953, B6.
286“relationships among men”: Gilbert Millstein, “Life in a Cell-Block,” New York Times Book Review, January 18, 1953, 24.
286“perhaps one of the foulest”: Henry F. Winslow, “Book of the Week: Rev. of Cast the First Stone by Chester Himes,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 18, 1953, 9.
286“I am afraid”: Ellison to Wright, January 21, 1953.
286“decidedly homophobic”: Richard Gibson to Michel Fabre, June 6, 1988, MF, box 6 folder, 18.
287Even though he was uncomfortable: CH to CVV, December 11, 1952, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1956.”
287the remaining $2500 advance: Zevin to CH, October 16, 1954.
288“social realism”: James Baldwin, “History as Nightmare,” review of Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes, New Leader, October 25, 1947, 11.
288“I suppose you received”: CH to Wright, February 19, 1953, RW, box 99, folder 1393.
289“I’m so goddamned close”: CH to Wright, March 18, 1953, ibid.
289“strange and strained”: Cayton to CH, March 18, 1953.
290“stylish, nice-looking”: QH, 150.
291“fidelity to sexual detail”: Ibid., 157.
291sheltered downed Allied airmen: “Husband Beat Her for Aiding Allies,” Daily Boston Globe, December 10, 1946, 12.
292featured in Time: “Untitled,” Time, February 2, 1953, 11.
292“assured, distinguished”: QH, 297.
292“if things work out”: CH to Malartic, March 11, 1953, MF, box 7, folder 4.
292reminded jazzy Parisians of the strip: Marcel Duhamel, Raconte pas ta vie (Paris: Mercure de France, 1972), 527.
293“gone completely French”: QH, 180.
293“immoderate curiosity”: Ibid., 183.
293“I don’t know exactly”: CH to CVV, May 12, 1953, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1956.”
294“exceedingly dull”: QH, 185.
294“could say no”: Ibid., 189.
294“wild and raging fury”: Ibid., 178.
294“adventure without responsibilities”: CH, A Case of Rape (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1984), 94.
295Wright himself had been throwing: CH to JAW, October 31, 1962, DCDJ, 24.
295“gossipy little” Café Monaco: CH, “Impressions of Europe,” p. 2, CHP-T, box 7, folder 82.
295“a lost and unhappy lot”: CH to CVV, May 12, 1953.
295“bragging about their scars”: QH, 224.
296“smaller, less wide-eyed”: CH, “Impressions of Europe,” p. 2.
296“most outstanding characteristic”: QH, 185.
297“COME QUICKLY”: Ibid., p. 190.
298Schine demanded from Wright: HF, p. 93.
298already public knowledge: Richard Wright, “I Tried to Be a Communist,” Atlantic Monthly, September 1944, 48–56.
298“That stupid son of a bitch”: QH, 199.
298“small, intense young man”: Ibid., 200.
298Franco-American Fellowship: Lawrence Jackson, The Indignant Generation: A Narrative History of Black Writers and Critics, 1934–1960 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010), 386.
299Baldwin found it “embarrassing”: James Baldwin to William Cole, n.d. [c. August 1953], James Baldwin Mss. Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington.
299“We’re perfectly pleasant”: James Baldwin to William Cole, n.d. [c. November 1952], ibid.
299“As I listened”: HF, 94.
299“black is a terrible color”: James Baldwin, “Many Thousands Gone,” in Notes of a Native Son (1955; repr., Boston: Beacon, 1984), 30. This influential essay was originally published in 1951 in Partisan Review and reprinted in 1953 in the journal Perspectives USA.
300“the sons must slay the fathers”: QH, 201.
300“my ally, my witness”: James Baldwin, “Richard Wright,” Encounter, April 1961, 58.
300“taken leave of his senses”: QH, 201.
300“written my book”: HF, 7.
301“our boy” and “your son”: CH to Wright, June 1, 1953.
301“it lacks force”: Marie Frazier to CH, n.d. [c. May–June 1953], CHP-T, box 7, folder 9.
301“We shall promote”: William Targ to CH, June 2, 1953, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20.
302“Get all you can”: QH, 208.
302“soul shattering”: WT to CH (“Darling I was very glad”), n.d. Friday night, [c. late June 1955], CHP-T, box 6, folder 5.
302“inferior and ill at ease”: CH, A Case of Rape, 70.
302“furious with himself”: QH, 208.
302“Dick would have been”: WT to CH, (“Darling: I was glad to hear”), n.d. Monday morning [c. January 1955], CHP-T, box 6, folder 4.
303“I have the kind”: CH to Walter Freeman, December 10, 1956, CHP-T, box 3, folder 14.
303“as though she were my patient”: QH, 163.
303“the rich, French leftist”: CH to William Targ, July 14, 1953, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20.
303“Richard Wright is a great man”: QH, 211.
304“too subtle and complicated”: CH to Targ, July 14, 1953.
304“hard hurried contest”: CH to Malartic, May 11, 1953, MF, box 7, folder 4.
304“It must be wonderful”: Ruth Phillips to CH, June 3, 1953, CHP-T, box 7, folder 3.
304“I think Mr. Himes”: WT to Yvonne Malartic, May 14, 1953, CHP-T, box 6, folder 4.
304Willa disliked the sensation: WT to CH, (“Chester: You asked me”), n.d. Tuesday night [c. April 1955], CHP-T, box 6, folder 4.
305“I am living here”: CH to CVV, June 1, 1953, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1955.”
305“I’ve made so many”: CH to Wright, June 1, 1953.
305“in one dramatic incident”: CH to Malartic, n.d. [“Thursday,” c. June 1953], MF, box 7, folder 4.
306“hopes” of The Cord “doing fairly well”: CH to Malartic, February 18, 1953, ibid.
306“I got what I wanted”: CH to Targ, May 25, 1953, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20.
306“with great interest and satisfaction”: Targ to CH, June 2, 1953, ibid.
307“courageous, uncomplaining”: QH, 211.
307“asked Kriss how she could”: WT to CH, (“Darling: I have your special”), n.d. Thursday noontime [December 1954], CHP-T, box 6, folder 5.
307“Oh, there are lots of American white women”: QH, 247.
308“Race prejudice is about”: CH to Malartic, July 11, 1953.
309“drab, walled prison”: CH, “Impressions of Europe,” 9.
309“a single volume”: Ibid.
309“I think they are off”: Targ to CH, July 27, 1953, CHP-T, box 6, folder 1.
309“The book you have”: Donald Friede to CH, August 1, 1953, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20.
310“The situation which now exists”: CH to Targ, August 13, 1953, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20.
311“limited engagement”: QH, 261.
311Since June, Chester has been courting: Targ to CH, June 10, 1953, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20.
311“I shall look forward”: Donald Friede to CH, August 10, 1953, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20.
312“a nice, healthy, wholesome”: QH, 264, 265.
313Early in October: Targ to CH, October 2, 1953, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20.
313“None of the readers”: Ibid.
313“most reluctant” Targ: Targ to CH, October 9, 1953, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20.
313“big, ugly, smoky and dismal”: CH to Malartic, October 21, 1953, MF, box 7, folder 4.
313“the most awful”: CH to CVV, August 17, 1954, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1955.”
314“I’m keeping my fingers”: CH to Targ, December 3, 1953, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20.
314“repay me well”: CH to CVV, January 19, 1954, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1955.”
314“too damn cold to bathe”: QH, 269.
11. OTHELLO
315“into herself like a hurt animal”: QH, 271.
315engaging World in an option ploy: Ben Zevin to CH, October 16, 1954, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20; CH to CVV, April 15, 1954, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1955.”
316“inexperienced and untraveled”: QH, 271.
316“tearful, sinister-looking”: Ibid., 274.
316“but the few New York reviews”: CH to CVV, February 5, 1954, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1955.”
317“considerable power”: John Brooks, “Tragedy in Sepia,” New York Times Book Review, January 10, 1954, 29.
317“Tragic power”: Edmund Fuller, “A Moving Novel of Negro Life,” Chicago Tribune, January 10, 1954, B5.
317“his best novel to date”: Gertrude Martin, “Book Reviews,” Chicago Defender, January 16, 1954, 7.
317“The most dangerous”: Marion L. Starkey, “Most Dangerous Kind of ‘Momism,’ ” Boston Globe, January 31, 1954, C71.
317“a less depressing book”: Brooks, “Tragedy in Sepia.”
317“just an exercise”: Blyden Jackson, “The Blithe Newcomers: Resume of Negro Literature in 1954: Part I,” Phylon (1st quarter 1955): 9.
318“problems and conflicts”: Arthur P. Davis, “Integration and Race Literature,” Phylon (2nd quarter 1956): 143.
318“moving along not too badly”: William Targ to CH, February 9, 1954, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20.
3185146 copies: Royalty Statement, The Third Generation by Chester Himes, World Publishing Company, September 25, 1954, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20.
318“big vulgar” advertisements: CH to CVV, August 17, 1954, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1955.”
319“number of American lunatics”: CH to Yves Malartic, May 29, 1954, MF, box 7, folder 4.
319“I was trying to express”: QH, 285.
319“some of the most pornographic”: CH to CVV, April 15, 1954, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1955.”.
320“I don’t want you”: CH to William Targ, April 6, 1954, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20.
320“Everyone here believes”: Targ to CH, April 13, 1954, ibid.
320“one of the most profane”: CH to CVV, May 25, 1954, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1955.”
321“every good soldier”: CH to Edward Himes, November 20, 1971, JSH, box 2, folder 11; QH, 290.
321sent $50 directly: CH to Targ, April 25, 1954, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20.
321“good deal of surrealism”: CH to CVV, July 7, 1954, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1955.”
322“American idiots”: CH to Malartic, February 16, 1954, MF, box 7, folder 4.
322“The Americans and the English”: QH, 306.
323“I caught him looking”: WT to CH (“Darling: I have your special”) n.d. Thursday noontime [April 1955], CHP-T, box 6, folder 5.
323“such rapport with men”: QH, 307.
323“practically begging in the streets”: CH to Malartic, June 7, 1954, MF, box 7, folder 4.
323“If published it would”: Targ to CH, July 1, 1954, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20.
324“We Negro writers”: CH to Targ, July 6, 1954, CHP, box 2, folder 20.
324“the grim humorous attack”: CH to Malartic, July 7, 1954, MF, box 7, folder 4.
324“I like this book”: CH to Yves Malartic, July 29, 1954, ibid.
324he thought the book a masterpiece: CH to CVV, July 29, 1954, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1955.”
325“I must confess this bundle”: CH to Targ, August 23, 1954, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20.
326“distraught and intent”: QH, 323.
327“it’s better for me”: CH to Ben Zevin, n.d. [c. September 1954], CHP-T, box 6, folder 15.
327“Himes, you’ll never”: QH, 347.
328“puritan wave flowing around”: Jean Rosenthal to CH, September 30, 1954, CHP-T, box 1, folder 6.
328“cooled off mightily”: CH to CVV, October 16, 1954, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1955.”
328“I was an awful person in Paris”: WT to CH, n.d. [c. December 12, 1954], CHP-T, box 6, folder 4.
328Chester withdrew from the agency: CH to Jean Rosenthal, October 15, 1954, CHP-T, box 1, folder 6.
328she was foolish to suppose: CH to Mrs. Boutelleau, October 14, 1954, CHP-T, box 3, folder 3.
328“Sick at heart”: CH to Targ, October 11, 1954, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20.
329earned the company $4,380.96: Ben Zevin to CH, October 16, 1954, ibid.
329“too specialized”: J. Laughlin to CH, November 9, 1954, CHP-T, box 1, folder 17.
329“things are now bad enough”: CH to CVV, October 16, 1954.
329“rather frail”: Marcel Duhamel, Raconte pas ta vie (Paris: Mercure de France, 1972), 589.
329a contract for The End of a Primitive: CH to Marcel Duhamel, July 19, 1955, CHP-T, box 1, folder 11.
329“wanted this Negro”: CH to CVV, December 16, 1954, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1955.”
329“a detective story”: CH to CVV, November 29, 1954, ibid.
330“and how I managed”: CH to Victor Weybright, November 3, 1954, CHP-T, box 1, folder 24.
330“she shouldn’t think of it”: QH, 350.
330He needed time alone: WT to CH (“Darling, I don’t quite know how”), n.d. Friday [c. June 1955], CHP-T, box 6, folder 4.
331“every paragraph of it”: Annie Brierre to CH, n.d. [c. 1954–1955], CHP-T, box 3, folder 3.
331“an art strong enough”: Jean-Claude Brisville, review of S’il braille, lâche-le, by CH, La Nef (December 1949–January 1950): 130, quoted in Grégory Pierrot, “Chester Himes, Boris Vian, and the Transatlantic Politics of Racial Representation,” African American Review (Summer–Fall 2009): 256.
332“insolent and hostile”: CH to CVV, November 29, 1954.
332“the black Prometheus”: Leonard Barnes, review of How Britain Rules Africa, by George Padmore, International Affairs (September 1937): 797.
333“Are you really divorced”: WT to CH (“trouble in Paris”), n.d. [c. April 1955], CHP-T, box 6, folder 4; WT to CH (“Darling: I have your special”), n.d. Thursday noontime [c. April 1955].
333“I think your writing”: WT to CH, December 20, 1954, CHP-T, box 6, folder 4.
333“We had each”: MLA, 11.
334“I am backing out”: Ibid., 10.
334free to do: WT to CH, January 5, 1955, CHP-T, box 6, folder 4.
334on January 15, 1955: WT to CH, January 20, 1955, ibid.
334“broke, bitter, defeated”: MLA, 11.
335“Everything is such”: WT to CH (“Monday morning, This will be”), n.d. [c. late February 1955], CHP-T, box 6, folder 4.
335mailing a weekly stipend: WT to CH (“Here’s your check”) n.d. Friday noon [c. late February 1955], ibid.
335“Have you heard”: WT to CH (“Wednesday at home 2pm, This is just”), n.d. [c. early February 1955], ibid.
335“I liked Fanny”: Ibid.
336“making love to her”: MLA, 14.
336“We might be able”: WT to CH (“Friday night, Just before I left”), n.d. [c. late February 1955], CHP-T, box 6, folder 4.
336“Darling, thank you”: WT to CH (“It is finally my lunch hour”), n.d. [c. late February 1955], ibid.
336“her white tiny body”: MLA, 25.
336“booney”: WT to CH (“Well I finally did get home”) n.d. Monday morning [c. late February 1955], CHP-T, box 6, folder 4.
336“My, what a problem we have!”: WT to CH, (“Darling: I came in anyway”), n.d. Wednesday [winter 1955], ibid.
336through an open door: CH to JAW, October 31, 1962, DCDJ, 27.
337“God loved Eve”: CH and WT, Silver Altar, typescript, LPH, collection 690, box 3 (8), folder 9, pp. 608, 609.
337“People, Americans”: WT to CH (“Darling I am so weary”), n.d. Monday, [c. late February 1955], CHP-T, box 6, folder 4.
337“Very few white women”: WT to CH (“Chester: You asked me to write”), n.d. Tuesday night [April 1955], ibid.
338“magnificent” writing: WT to CH (“Darling: Now I shall write you a nice long letter”), n.d. Wednesday afternoon [late spring 1955], ibid.
338“It is the first time”: WT to CH (“It is finally my lunch hour”) n.d. [c. late February 1955].
338“little bit wrong”: WT to CH (“Friday night, Just before I left”) n.d. [c. late February 1955].
339“What’s the difference”: WT to CH (“Darling I was very glad”), n.d. Friday night, [c. late June 1955], CHP-T, box 6, folder 4.
340“Can you imagine”: WT to CH (“Now that I have recovered”) n.d. Thursday night, [c. June 1955], ibid.
340“a very attractive intelligent person”: WT to CH (“Chester: You asked me to write”), n.d. Tuesday night [April 1955].
340“I never believed it possible”: WT to CH (“Darling I received your long letter”), n.d. Saturday [c. May 1955], CHP-T, box 6, folder 4.
340“furious and hurt”: MLA, 19.
340“I am hoping”: CH to CVV, March 28, 1955, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1955.”
340“I would like to go somewhere”: WT to CH (“Darling I have your Wednesday letter”), n.d. Thursday [c. May 1955], CHP-T, box 6, folder 4.
341“a liar”: Ibid.
341finagling a reprint contract: Charles Byrnes to CH, March 16, 1955, CHP-T, box 1, folder 2.
341You have not received”: William Koshland to CH, March 16, 1955, AAK.
341“General Himes”: Harry Buchman to William Koshland, March 29, 1955, AAK; William Koshland, memorandum to Mrs. Knopf, February 4, 1963, AAK.
341“that you finally have some money”: WT to CH (“Darling: I said I’d write”), n.d. Thursday [c. late April 1955], CHP-T, box 6, folder 4.
341$100 at the end of May: Byrnes to CH, May 31, 1955, CHP-T, box 1, folder 2.
341a bill for $806: CH to Charles Byrnes, May 25, 1955, ibid.
341“simply will not register”: Walter Freeman to CH, May 3, 1955, CHP-T, box 1, folder 24.
342beseeched NAL’s Walter Freeman: CH to Walter Freeman, May 9, 1955, ibid.; Freeman to CH, May 11, 1955, ibid.
342“If you will accept my apology”: CH to Lurton Blassingame, n.d. [c. May 1955], CHP-T, box 3, folder 3.
343his room of “horror”: WT to CH (“Chester: I’ll only have time”), n.d. Friday afternoon [May 1955], CHP-T, box 6, folder 4.
343“We should have stayed busted up”: WT to CH (“Thanks for sending the stuff”), n.d. Friday [c. late June 1955], ibid.
343“Don’t get a divorce”: WT to CH (“I have received your long letter”), n.d. Saturday [May 1955], ibid.
343“If we’re through”: WT to CH (“Chester: You asked me”), n.d. Tuesday night [c. April 1955], ibid.
343“I would not like”: Ibid.
343“Oh shit, I do so want”: MLA, 17.
344Vandi Haygood was dead: “Mrs. Haygood Dies in NYC: Aided Many Young, Struggling Writers,” Afro-American, July 30, 1955, 21.
344landing The Third Generation: Annie Brierre to CH, n.d. [c. 1954–1955], CHP-T, box 3, folder 3; CH to Targ, July 19, 1955, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20.
344“and the next morning”: MLA, 24.
345he told Blassingame his theories: Lurton Blassingame to CH, August 30, 1955, CHP-T, box 3, folder 3.
345“I can’t make a commitment”: Arnold Gingrich to CH, December 17, 1956, AG, box 12, folder “H #2.”
345“I have found it a pleasure”: Freeman to CH, May 3, 1955.
345“practically every change”: Freeman to CH, September 12, 1955, CHP-T, box 3, folder 14.
346Emmett Till: “Nation Horrified by Murder of Kidnapped Chicago Youth,” Jet, September 15, 1955, 6–9.
346“I am innately sad”: CH to CVV, September 27, 1955, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1955.”
346“The only jobs in New York”: MLA, 27.
346“hell is hell”: CH to Duhamel, July 19, 1955.
347“I was storing up”: MLA, 29.
347“One thing I learned”: WT to CH, August 23, 1955, CHP-T, box 6, folder 5.
347“way out”: WT to CH, September 2, 1955, ibid.
347the judgment summarily passed: F. G. Short and Sons, Plaintiff, against Chester Himes, Defendant, Index No. 33154/55, CHP-T, box 20, folder 4.
348“current earnings have not covered”: Frank Vogel to CH, September 29, 1955, CHP-T, box 1, folder 5.
348“I felt I had to get out”: CH to CVV, December 20, 1955, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1955.”
348“cheap, tenement-like effect”: Freeman to CH, November 9, 1955, CHP-T, box 3, folder 17.
349“just to stay alive”: CH to JAW, July 9, 1969, DCDJ, 92.
349he would kill someone: Constance Webb Pearlstein to Lesley Himes, September 19, 1995, LPH, box 1, folder 15.
12. A PISTOL IN HIS HAND, AGAIN
350On December 22, 1955: Chester Himes, no. 39540, U.S. Passport, issued March 1953, CHP-T, box 12. CH writes in MLA that he arrived on December 26, but his passport was stamped on the twenty-second.
350“I got America”: MLA, 36.
350“diminished me”: CH to Charles Orengo, January 12, 1956, CHP-T, box 1, folder 20.
350“fantastically dull bitter-enders”: CH to Walter Freeman, January 4, 1956, CHP-T, box 1, folder 7.
351on January 24: Contrat d’Édition: La traduction francaise de The third generation, Monsieur Chester Himes et la Librairie Plon, January 24, 1956, CHP-T, box 19, folder 2.
351“What does one”: CH, “Chester Himes,” La Fin d’un primitif, trans. Yves Malartic (Paris: Gallimard, 1956), 9.
351bespoke “dignity”: CH to CVV, April 26, 1956, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1956–1961.”
352ordinary to stumble across: Lesley Packard Himes, interview with author, May 2009.
352“sold my rights”: CH to Oliver Swan, January 21, 1956, CHP-T, box 5, folder 15.
352Willa had the right: Affidavit “Know All Persons by These Present,” March 15, 1956, CHP-T, box 19, folder 1.
353“with soft beautiful features”: MLA, 107.
353theatrically declared: Ibid., 38.
353considered The Primitive “excellent”: Richard Gibson to Michel Fabre, May 26, 1988, MF, box 6, folder 18.
353as would Henry Miller: Walter Freeman to CH, April 20, 1956, CHP-T, box 3, folder 17.
353“Take it easy greasy”: Walter Coleman to CH, October 18, 1973, CHP-T, box 3, folder 5.
354French papers: “La Resistance des Noirs: Devient chaque jour de plus en plus puissante,” Le Monde, February 28, 1956, 1.
354On February 21: J. P. Chabrol, “Le Quartier Latin a l’heure antifasciste,” L’Humanité, February 24, 1956, 7F.
354“Hollywood type mob scene”: CH to Freeman, March 5, 1956, CHP-T, box 3, folder 17.
355their world of “refreshing” Paris: David Remnick, “George Plimpton’s Good Life,” Washington Post, November 4, 1984, H2.
355“He could never finish deriding”: Gibson to Fabre, May 26, 1988.
355“I was the only black”: MLA, 124.
356Attorney General Tom Clark: Mel Tarpley, “Is Ollie Harrington, Battling Cartoonist, Returning?,” New York Amsterdam News, June 29, 1991, 30; Wil Haygood, “Expatriate Artist Looks Homeward: Oliver Harrington, Who Fled U.S. in McCarthy Era, Is Wistful but Devoted ‘My Life to My Beliefs,’ ” Boston Globe, March 20, 1988, 83.
356“unique individuals”: MLA, 36.
357“great charm”: Ibid., 57.
357“In front of that vast white audience”: Ibid., 37.
357“ ‘Everybody’s ain’t that big’ ”: CH, Pinktoes (1961; repr., New York: Dell, 1966), 81.
357“Mamie’s one ambition”: Ibid., 35.
357“finding it difficult”: CH to CVV, April 26, 1956.
358first met a teenage Silberman: HF, 12.
358“wonderful subject”: James Silberman to CH, May 6, 1956, CHP-T, box 1, folder 7.
358“the most notorious”: MLA, 72.
358“straight narrative”: CH to CVV, August 28, 1956, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1956–1961.”
358“White Americans are reading”: CH to CVV, April 26, 1956.
358“a very flexible version”: CH to James Silberman, May 9, 1956, CHP-T, box 1, folder 7.
359“German women”: MLA, 78.
360worked hard hours in solitude: CH to Walter Freeman, December 12, 1956. CHP-T, box 3, folder 17.
361“there’s no point”: WT to CH (“Dear Chester: Thanks for your letter”), n.d. [June 1956], CHP-T, box 6, folder 5.
361several drunken evenings: Gibson to Fabre, May 26, 1988.
362“dedicated to the cults”: Richard Gibson, “Curzio Malaparte: The Vision of Defeat,” Merlin (December 1954): 307.
362“So you’re the boy”: Richard Gibson, “A No to Nothing,” Kenyon Review (Spring 1951): 252–55; Richard Gibson, “Richard Wright’s ‘Island of Hallucination’ and the ‘Gibson Affair,’ ” Modern Fiction Studies (Winter 1995): 907.
362argued about back rent: Gibson, “Richard Wright’s,” 910.
362“tell the truth”: Gibson to Fabre, November 18, 1987, MF, box 6, folder 8.
362he sided with Harrington after the fight: MLA, 34, 73; Lesley Himes interview; Gibson to Fabre, May 26, 1988.
363French police: Bernard Dadié, An African in Paris, trans. Karen C. Hatch (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 146–47.
363“I’ve got my life”: CH to CVV, April 26, 1956.
363“Why don’t you marry”: CH to Jean Himes, July 30, 1956, CHP-T, box 5, folder 8.
363reversing himself on earlier: WT to CH, June 19, 1956, CHP-T, box 6, folder 5.
363“If it appears in print”: CH to Mr. Bledsoe, December 8, 1956, CHP-T, box 3, folder 3.
363“I hate him”: Edward Darling to WT, April 17, 1958, Beacon Press Records, box 123, folder “Thompson, Willa/Garden Without Flowers,” Andover-Harvard Library, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. For a full exploration of the literary relationship between Himes and Thompson see Guy Conn, “The Racio-Sexual Psychology of Inter-Racial Relationships: Recovering Chester Himes’ Garden Without Flowers,” PhD diss., Emory University, forthcoming.
364“Chet thinks”: MLA, 76.
364“a front room”: CH to CVV, October 8, 1956, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1956–1961”; Paul Zweig, “Departures,” in Americans in Paris: A Literary Anthology, ed. Adam Gopnick (New York: Library of America, 2004), 513.
364Regine “had troubles”: Regine Fischer to CH, December 6, 1956, CHP-T, box 3, folder 15.
364“Living on the goodwill”: CH to CVV, August 28, 1956.
365“This results in extravagance”: “Noir et blanc,” L’Express, August 24, 1956, 16.
365Chester escorted Ellison: MLA, 35.
365“as tortured as ever”: Ralph Ellison to Horace Cayton, n.d. [c. April 1957], RE, box 41, folder Horace Cayton.
365literary critic Alfred Kazin: Ralph Ellison to Saul Bellow, August 15, 1956, Saul Bellow Papers, box 2, folder 8, Regenstein Library, University of Chicago.
366“I wonder vaguely”: CH to Jean Himes, October 11, 1956, CHP-T, box 5, folder 8.
366he owed about $500: CH to Freeman, September 23, 1956, CHP-T, box 3, folder 17.
366“I didn’t take any active”: CH to CVV, October 6, 1956, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1956–1961.”
367“grave” and taciturn: Davidson Nicol, “Alioune Diop and the African Renaissance,” African Affairs (January 1979): 7.
367Wright, a conference organizer: Michel Fabre, The World of Richard Wright (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1985), 199.
367the dole of the Central Intelligence Agency: Lawrence P. Jackson, The Indignant Generation (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010), 462–63.
367“socialism for Africa”: W. E. B. Du Bois, “To the Congres des Ecrivains et Artistes Noirs,” Le 1er Congrès International des Écrivains et Artistes Noirs: Présence Africaine, numéro spécial (June–November 1956), p. 383. See Guirdex Masse, “A Black Diasporic Encounter: The First International Congress of Black Writers and Artists and the Politics of Race and Culture,” PhD diss., Emory University, 2014.
367“communicate only slightly”: Ellison to Cayton, n.d. [c. April 1957].
368“not one quality literary work”: Mongo Beti, “Romancing Africa,” in Cruel City, trans. Pim Higginson (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), xi, xiv.
368which he had cited: Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, trans. Charles Markmann (1952; repr., New York: Grove Press, 1967), 140.
368A copy of the French edition: Frantz Fanon, Ecrits sur l’aliénation et la liberté, ed. Jean Khalfa and Robert Young (Paris: Editions la Découverte, 2015), 608.
369“dilettante Uncle Tom”: CH, A Case of Rape (1980; repr., New York: Carroll and Graf, 1994), 47.
369“As a yardstick”: Ibid., 33–34.
370“more or less a type”: Ibid., 94.
370“I will try to be”: Regine Fischer to CH, September 25, 1956, CHP-T, box 3, folder 15.
370“I don’t know”: CH to Victor Weybright, October 12, 1956, CHP-T, box 1, folder 24.
370“I don’t think Mamie Mason”: Silberman to CH, October 2, 1956, CHP-T, box 1, folder 7.
371“brilliant social satire”: Victor Weybright to CH, October 11, 1956, CHP-T, box 1, folder 24.
371“Please do not consider”: CH to Freeman, September 23, 1956.
371He raced to court Gallimard: CH to P. D. Mascolo, October 14, 1956, CHP-T, box 1, folder 11.
371“I wish I could”: CH to Freeman, September 23, 1956.
372“I like the idea”: CH to Marcel Duhamel, October 16, 1956, CHP-T, box 1, folder 11.
372“follow your suggestions”: Ibid.; CH to CVV, November 18, 1956, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1956–1961.”
372“the greatest writer”: MLA, 102.
372“the idea of death”: Jonathan P. Eburne, “The Transatlantic Mysteries of Paris: Chester Himes, Surrealism, and the Serie Noir,” PMLA 120, no. 3 (2005): 810; Marcel Duhamel, “Préface,” Panorama du film noir américain, ed. Raymonde Borde and Emil Chaumenton (Paris: Minuit, 1955), vii–x.
372“We don’t give a damn”: MLA, 102.
373“intolerable situation”: CH to Charles Byrnes, November 2, 1956, CHP-T, box 1, folder 2.
373“a condemnation”: CH to Freeman, December 10, 1956, CHP-T, box 3, folder 14.
373U.S. embassy had him interrogated: MLA, 123.
373“of the cult devoted”: CH, A Case of Rape, 36.
373“spellbound, silently”: Walter Coleman to CH, October 18, 1973, CHP-T, box 3, folder 5.
374“I am pretty nearly beat”: CH to Freeman, December 12, 1956.
375“I am not intelligent”: R. Fischer to CH, December 6, 1956.
375“I am the only person”: CH to Otto Fischer, December 16, 1956, CHP-T, box 6, folder 15.
376“I see no possibility”: Arthur Fields to CH, December 18, 1956, CHP-T, box 1, folder 5.
376“You can’t have a policier”: MLA, 105.
376“tall, loose-jointed, sloppily dressed”: CH, A Rage in Harlem (1957; repr., New York: Vintage, 1991), 44.
376“It was said in Harlem”: Ibid., 49.
377“[Papa] LaBas and [Black] Herman”: Ishmael Reed to CH, July 27, 1972, CHP-T, box 5, folder 13.
377“a wild, incredible story”: MLA, 109.
377“the voracious churning”: CH, A Rage in Harlem, 93.
378“Goldy’s scream mingled”: Ibid., 105.
379“cheap, shabby and racist”: Lawrence Jordan to CH, January 22, 1976, CHP-T, box 1, folder 9.
379“just makes me feel”: Fischer to CH, January 10, 1957, CHP-T, box 3, folder 15.
379“Darling I am not coming”: Fischer to CH, December 15, 1956, ibid.
379She would sign letters: Regine Himes to “Chere Madame,” n.d. [from Vence Villa Lavadou], CHP-T, box 3, folder 16; CH to CVV, December 19, 1957, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1956–1961.”
379“a blind insensate fury”: MLA, 118.
379“dirty nigger”: Fischer to CH, n.d. [c. March–April 1957], CHP-T, box 3, folder 15.
379“No human being”: Ibid.
380“I couldn’t stop slapping”: CH, “The Way It Was,” typescript with handwritten revisions, p. 42, CHP-T 180, box 6.
380“I’ve cut down”: CH to CVV, April 23, 1957, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1956–1961.”
380“Now that you’ve broke”: MLA, 121.
381“cesspool of buffoonery”: Ibid., 126.
382“frenzied boudoir adventures”: “The Primitives,” Duke, June 1957, 63.
382“suffocated” by the wealth: MLA, 165.
383“its insight, its violence”: Feux Croisés: Ames et Terres Étrangères, May 21, 1957, Théatre de l’Alliance Français, CHP-T, box 23, folder 253.
383“free of thinking about”: MLA, 144.
383African memories or racial mixture: J. Claude Deven, “Chester Himes: Les Noirs d’Amérique à la troisième génération,” Tribune de Lausaune, May 26, 1957, clipping in CHP-T, box 34, folder 3.
384“I had a German girl”: MLA, 144.
385“desire to succeed”: Ibid., 155.
385“could write like”: Ibid.
385Ollie had been condemning: Gibson, “Richard Wright’s,” 911–12.
385“Any American who thinks”: Ollie Harrington, letter to the editor, Life, October 21, 1957, 10.
385Gibson claimed: Richard Gibson, letter to Michel Fabre, November 10, 1987, MF, box 6, folder 18.
386“I am sorry about what”: Horace Cayton, interview notes with St. Clair Drake, September 1968, MF, box 46, folder 56.
386“disrupt, disorganize, and neutralize”: Curt Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992), 442–45.
386Chester strongly suspected Gibson: MLA, 34, 73; Lesley Himes interview; Gibson to Fabre, May 26, 1988.
387“I’ve spent too much”: CH, “Richard Wright hadn’t much to say to me,” typescript fragment, MF, box 8, folder 16.
388burning a bowl: CH to CVV, December 17, 1957, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1956–1961.”
388“lift scenes straight”: MLA, 169.
388“I had accomplished nothing”: Ibid., 177.
388being a grubber: CH to CVV, December 19, 1957.
390“I give you all”: Anthony Boucher, “Criminals at Large,” New York Times Book Review, September 9, 1959, 13.
390replacing John Steinbeck: MLA, 181.
390“out of the American black’s secret mind”: Ibid.
391“the superignorant sentimentality”: Dawn Powell to Joseph Gousha, n.d. [c. December 1950], “Three Letters,” in Gopnick, Americans in Paris, 459.
391“the most extraordinary”: Igor Maslowski, “Ma Selection du mois: La Reine des pommes,” Mystère, June 1958, 117.
392“caused a sensation”: MLA, 185.
392“Congratulations, I hear”: Lesley Himes interview.
392“Beautiful and chic”: MLA, 186.
392believed that she was racist: Carlos Moore, interview with author, May 2010.
393“In America you have”: “Amid the Alien Corn,” Time, November 17, 1958, 30.
393“a person in Vence”: MLA, 181.
394“I was a real celebrity”: Ibid., 185.
395“I confess it is”: CH to Lesley Packard, July 28, 1959, CHP-T, box 6, folder 5.
395“I am going to Paris”: Fischer to CH, September 10, 1959, CHP-T, box 3, folder 15.
395drunken debacle: CH to Lorraine Williams, October 22, 1965, DCDJ, 47.
396“The French . . . have gone mad”: Boucher, “Criminals at Large,” 13.
396“The question arose”: Lewis Nichols, “In and Out of Books,” New York Times Book Review, September 27, 1959, 8.
396“I dread reading”: CH to CVV, October 5, 1959, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1956–1961.”
396“It hurt more”: MLA, 196.
397“The New York Times could not have chosen”: CH to editor, New York Times, October 10, 1959, CHP-T, box 5, folder 15.
397“I haven’t seen anything”: CH to CVV, March 30, 1959, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1956–1961.”
397“a group of negro residents in Paris”: Legat Paris to Director FBI, February 11, 1960, Oliver Wendell Harrington, FBI File #100-379980, Federal Bureau of Investigation.
397“Possible Subversives Among US Personnel”: Legat Paris to Director FBI, February 11, 1960, Richard Nathaniel Wright, FBI File #100-157464, p. 169, Federal Bureau of Investigation.
397Irle saw the author . . . “lots of times”: Abiola Irele, interview with author, September 2013.
398“flamboyant” . . . “truculent”: Mongo Beti, “Le Pauvre Christ de Bomba Explique!,” Peuple Noirs, Peuples Africains 19 (1981): 116–17.
13. FIVE CORNERED SQUARE
399“the worst moment”: MLA, 198.
400“this veritable ocean”: CH to Lesley Packard, n.d. [c. 1961], CHP-T, box 5, folder 6.
400“This is me, Chester Himes”: MLA, p. 200.
400“You know that I”: Regine Fischer to CH, March 1, 1959 [mistaken date], CHP-T, box 3, folder 16.
400“For you I have never”: Fischer to CH, March 15, 1960, ibid.
400“I don’t have”: Fischer to CH, January 2, 1960, CHP-T, box 6, folder 16.
401“a village of poor”: CH to JAW, October 11, 1962, DCDJ, 2.
401“Never stop giving”: Walter Coleman to CH, May 26, 1970, CHP-T, box 3, folder 5.
402“Everyone here”: CH to Lester Granger, February 14, 1960, CHP-T, box 3, folder 18.
402“It’s so sweet”: Fischer to CH, September 30, 1960, CHP-T, box 6, folder 16.
403“an extemporaneous journey”: MLA, 211.
404“Get the cat and the dog”: Lesley Packard Himes, interview with author, May 2009.
404“as a failure”: CH, A Case of Rape (1980; repr., New York: Carroll and Graf, 1994), 34.
404“I don’t want him to wallow”: MLA, 216.
404Wright had been closest to his girlfriend: Ollie Harrington, “The Last Days of Richard Wright,” Ebony, February 1961, 86.
405“How dare she do this?”: Lesley Himes interview.
405“Dick was the greatest”: MLA, 214.
405Wright’s “enemies”: Ibid., 215.
405“I had never realized before”: Ibid., 217.
406“DChief call d’young”: William Melvin Kelley to CH, December 14, 1970, CHP-T, box 4, folder 12.
407“If you want me”: CH to Packard (“Monday afternoon Lesley darling”), n.d. [c. winter–spring 1961], CHP-T, box 4, folder 7.
407“as much as I would”: Packard to CH, (“Thursday evening Chester darling”), n.d. [c. late fall 1961] CHP-T, box 4, folder 7.
407“broke, outcast, put down”: MLA, 220.
408“very pleasant” Maurice Girodias: : Fischer to CH, May 16, 1961, CHP-T, box 6, folder 16.
408On April 28: Contract between CH and the Olympia Press, April 28, 1961, CHP-T, box 19, folder 2.
409“absolutely delighted with the piece”: Herbert Hill to CH, June 17, 1961, CHP-T, box 4, folder 1.
410performing in white face: “Dean Dixon, 61, Dies, Conductor in Exile,” and Ronald Smothers, “His ‘Maestro’ Was Hard Won,” both in New York Times, November 5, 1976, 18.
411“like a mighty river”: MLA, 227.
411“I find that”: CH to Packard, September 18, 1961.
412“very much in love”: CH to CVV, December 16, 1961, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1956–1961.”
412“sailed over the crushed steering wheel”: MLA, 237.
412“outstanding human values”: “Exodus Opens Cannes Festival,” Chicago Daily Tribune, May 4, 1961, C3; “2 Movies Share Top Cannes Prizes,” New York Times, May 19, 1961, 23.
413“I’ll do what I can”: Marcel Duhamel to CH, October 27, 1961, CHP-T, box 1, folder 11.
413“defending the honor and integrity”: CH to Packard (“Friday Lesley darling—my own darling”), n.d. [c. fall 1961], CHP-T, box 4, folder 7.
413“out of the ordinary”: Annette Insdorf, “Cohn Makes the Right Move Towards Success,” Los Angeles Times, March 13, 1985, SD-D7.
413“I was beginning to feel rich”: MLA, 238.
414“runaway best-seller”: Ibid., 226.
414“so lucid and active”: CH to Packard (“Friday afternoon . . . Your letter”), n.d. [c. December 1961], CHP-T, box 4, folder 7.
414“very-very hard”: CH to CVV, December 16, 1961.
415“when you have no food”: CH, “Baby Sister,” in Black on Black: Baby Sister and Selected Writings (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973), 12.
415“natural-born call girl”: Ibid., 66.
415“on the downgrade”: MLA, 241.
416“To play jazz you must suffer”: CH, “Harlem, ou le cancer de l’Amérique,” Présence Africain, Spring 1963, 81.
416“someone laughing their way”: CH, The Heat’s On (1966; repr., New York: Vintage, 1988), 146.
416“Best Achievement in Documentary Production”: “Winner of Film Academy Awards,” Los Angeles Times, April 10, 1962, A2.
416terminating the contract: CH to Arthur Cohn, April 29 and May 1, 1962, CHP-T, box 3, folder 5.
417a “semidocumentary” approach: Howard Thompson, “French Filmmaker to Direct Semidocumentary in Harlem,” New York Times, July 7, 1962, 9.
417the lengthy interview conducted: Jesse H. Walker, “Theatricals,” New York Amsterdam News, July 21, 1962, 17.
418“got to know” Malcolm X “well”: MLA, 247.
418Malcolm X excitedly recalled: CH and François Bott, “Chester Himes: Il n’y a dans aucune autre ville du monde,” Adam, November 1964, 75.
418Malcolm X shared the gory pictures: “French Film Producer Sees Results,” Muhammad Speaks, July 31, 1962, 22.
419“White syndicates control”: CH, “Harlem, ou le cancer de l’Amérique,” 77.
419“tough, honest, hip”: Lebert Bethune, “Malcolm X in Europe,” in Malcolm X: The Man and His Times, ed. John Henrik Clarke (New York: Collier, 1969), 228.
419“distrusting white people”: MLA, 247.
419briefly reopened file: “Letter to Paris RE: Nation of Islam,” August 8, 1962, CH-FBI.
419dispute later brought intervention: “Harlem Business Yields in Dispute,” New York Times, June 13, 1962, 9.
419“The fuse has already”: “2,500 at Moslem Rally,” New York Amsterdam News, July 28, 1962, 33.
420loudly denouncing Los Angeles mayor: “Mayor Yorty Says Cult Backs ‘Hate,’ ” New York Times, July 27, 1962, 8.
421She recognized in Van Vechten’s: Marianne Greenwood to CVV, July 27, 1962, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1962–1964.”
421“an intense impression”: CH to CVV, October 9, 1962, ibid.
422the offer was withdrawn: Robert Cromie, “The Bystander,” Chicago Tribune, April 8, 1962, D8.
422voted to award Williams $2000: “Novelist Rejects Award; Lays Earlier Loss to Race Bias,” Afro-American, June 2, 1962, 20.
422a few pages of Lonely Crusade: CH, “From Lonely Crusade,” in Soon, One Morning, ed. Herbet Hill (New York: Knopf, 1963), 210–30.
423“Baby Sister consists”: Herbert Hill, memo to Arthur Cohn, April 16, 1962, MF, box 46, folder 56; JAW, “Chester Himes Is Getting On,” New York Herald Tribune, October 11, 1964, 2.
423Hill had become an FBI informant: Christopher Phelps, “Herbert Hill and the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Journal of Labor History (November 2012): 561–70.
423“fanatical” “antiwhite organization”: Legat Paris to Director FBI, August 8, 1962, CH-FBI; Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (New York: Viking, 2011), 212.
423“the Negro” be depicted “more honestly”: John C. Waugh, “NAACP Scolds Hollywood on Race,” Christian Science Monitor, June 27, 1963, 1.
424“such important new writers”: Robert Kirsch, “Art of Negro Poets and Authors Transcends Race,” Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1963, D6; L. M. Meriwether, “From Cover to Cover,” Los Angeles Sentinel, May 30, 1963, A6.
424“shake his motherfucking hand”: JAW to CH, March 20, 1966, DCDJ, 48.
425“I suppose I offered”: MLA, 248.
425“I did not like”: CH to CVV, October 9, 1962.
425“cut off” his career: MLA, 248.
425“$10K Cadillac driving”: CH, “Harlem, ou le cancer de l’Amérique,” 51.
426“the black bourgeoisie”: Ibid., 64.
426“Our primary objective”: Ibid., 60.
426“the racists in Mississippi”: CH to CVV, October 9, 1962.
427“U.S. racists were”: CH to JAW, October 11, 1962, 2.
427“It will happen”: CH, “James Meredith: Il y en a pour 450 ans,” Candide, October 8–10, 1962, 6.
427“rain of blood”: Ibid.
427“In trouble with the OAS”: CH to CVV, October 9, 1962.
428“a European locale”: CH to Arnold Gingrich, November 14, 1962, AG, box 12, folder “H #2.”
428Die Welt also agreed: Dr. Ramseger to CH, December 30, 1962, CHP-T, box 5, folder 13.
428“I don’t know how”: CH to CVV, n.d. [November 29, 1962], CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1962–1964.”
429Gallimard claimed: Marcel Duhamel to CH, September 12, 1962, CHP-T, box 1, folder 11.
429Chester identified the misstatements: CH to Duhamel, December 17, 1962, ibid.
429“I did my best”: Duhamel to CH, December 28, 1962, ibid.
429paid 7500 francs: CH, contract with Libraire Plon, December 17, 1962, CHP-T, box 19, folder 2.
14. COTTON COMES TO HARLEM
431“What the hell”: MMH-DCDJ, 219.
431“disparaging remarks”: MLA, 201.
431“considered the best in New York”: CH to Lesley Packard (“Friday: Lesley darling, in one”), n.d. [c. early 1963], CHP-T, box 4, folder 7.
431“at the very top”: CH to JAW, November 1962, DCDJ, 30.
431“One day people”: Allan Morrison, “Expatriate Novelist Himes,” Jet, January 31, 1963, 22–23.
432“my nerves are on the point”: CH to Packard, n.d. “Wednesday” [c. January 9, 1963], CHP-T, box 4, folder 7.
432“it isn’t easy”: CH to JAW, Friday, February 1963, DCDJ, 38.
432“elaborate and sometimes difficult”: Marianne Greenwood to CVV, n.d. [c. January 29, 1963], CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1962–1964.”
433“things did not go well”: CH to CVV, March 29, 1963, ibid.
433“sometimes well; sometimes poorly”: CH to JAW, February 6, 1963, DCDJ, 39.
433“our poor colored people”: CH, Cotton Comes to Harlem (1965; repr., New York: Vintage, 1988), 53.
433“the Back to Africa program”: MLA, 258.
433“seeking a home”: CH, Cotton Comes to Harlem, 26.
434“ ‘I wouldn’t do this’ ”: Ibid., 122.
434“a brain spasm”: MLA, p. 260.
434“ ‘financial obligations’ ”: CH to JAW, March 6, 1963, DCDJ, 41.
435“on the tip of a needle”: CH to Packard, April 15, 1963, CHP-T, box 4, folder 7.
435“parting of the ways”: CH to JAW, February 25, 1963, DCDJ, 40.
435“If you are involved”: CH to Packard, April 1, 1963, CHP-T, box 4, folder 7.
435wrote to her, graphically exposing: CH to Lesley Packard, April 3, 1963, ibid.
436“I feel much better”: CH to CVV, April 12, 1963, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes Chester B. 1962–1964.”
436“clean bill of health”: CH to CVV, January 15, 1964, ibid.
436“partial paralysis”: “New York Beat,” Jet, May 23, 1963, 63–64.
436“slight indisposition”: Joseph Himes to CH, June 8, 1963, CHP-T, box 4, folder 5.
436“where I am safe”: CH to JAW, March 6, 1963, DCDJ, 41.
436“I have discovered”: CH to CVV, March 29, 1963, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes Chester B. 1962–1964.”
437“the lost and hungry black people”: CH, Cotton Comes to Harlem, 7.
437“I want to go to Africa”: CH to CVV, April 5, 1963, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes Chester B. 1962–1964.”
437“I became very much disliked”: MLA, 269.
438“a number of articles”: CH to CVV, January 15, 1964.
438“Go away!”: Melvin Van Peebles, interview with author, February 2010.
438“People are crowding”: CH to CVV, January 15, 1964.
438“not like my other books”: MLA, 269.
438“more famous in Paris”: Ibid., 270.
439“The purpose of this work”: Guy de Bosscheres, review of Une Affaire de viol by Chester Himes, Présence Africain, Fall 1963, 240.
439“asking me what had happened”: MLA, 271.
440“time to sharpen it”: CH to CVV, January 15, 1964.
440“I am a writer”: CH to Packard (“Thursday morning, Lesley darling, I got your”), n.d. [c. early 1964], CHP-T, box 4, folder 7.
440“Holidays always bother me”: Ibid.
440“I am anxious to get”: CH to CVV, January 15, 1964.
440“My books drive”: CH to Packard (“Thursday morning, Lesley darling, I got your”), n.d. [c. early 1964].
441the first time a U.S. motion picture: Renata Adler, “Screen: A Black G.I. and a French Girl,” New York Times, July 9, 1968, 9.
442“the greatest black American”: Melvin Van Peebles, “Chester Himes, l’invaincu,” France-Observateur, February 20, 1964, 14.
442“more excellent way”: Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” in Why We Can’t Wait (1964; repr., New York: Signet, 2000), 100.
443“a good book I suppose”: CH to CVV, April 6, 1964, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes Chester B. 1962–1964.”
443“very bloody book”: Tristan Renaud, “Chester Himes: ‘Homeless,’ ” Les Lettres Francaises, March 12, 1964, 5.
443the “long journey”: CH to CVV, n.d. [May 12, 1964], CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes Chester B. 1962–1964.”
443“handsome” and “full of life”: Van Peebles, “Chester Himes, l’invaincu,” 13.
444“the same terms used”: Van Peebles, “Harlem en Feu,” France-Observateur, July 23, 1964, 9.
445“I’m sure you have”: Don Preston to CH, September 18, 1964, CHP-T, box 1, folder 1.
445“Not only is there indefinable poverty”: CH to CVV, October 23, 1964, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1962–1964.”
445“which I consider”: MLA, 289.
445“that racism has greatly”: CH to CVV, October 23, 1964.
446“I’m an evil, highly sensitive”: MLA, 278.
446“in the back of my mind”: CH to Seymour Lawrence, November 4, 1964, AAK.
446organize a small insurrection: Peniel Joseph, Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America (New York: Henry Holt, 2006), 313.
447Fidel Castro’s racist policies: Carlos Moore, “Le People noir a-t-il sa place dans la revolution cubaine?,” Présence Africain, Summer 1964, 177–230.
447“unfriendly, very savage”: Carlos Moore, interview with author, May 2010.
447the “wonderful” essay: MLA, 268.
447“Chester had this thing”: Moore interview.
448“bitter and hermetic”: William Gardner Smith, The Stone Face (New York: Farrar, Straus Giroux, 1963), 176.
448“Chester was a very bitter”: Moore interview.
448$7500 on signing: CH, contract with Dell and Putnam for Cotton Comes to Harlem, November 4, 1964, CHP-T, box 14, folder 1.
448Stein and Day for $10,000: CH, contract with Stein and Day, January 29, 1965, CHP-T, box 14, folder 1.
448“the American publishers”: CH to CVV, October 23, 1964.
448“displayed in the place of prominence”: MLA, 290.
449“After that everybody”: Ibid., 290–91.
449On November 22: The most accurate biography of Malcolm X, Manning Marable’s Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (New York: Viking, 2011), suggests that Malcolm X arrived in Paris on November 18, 1964, and checked into the Hotel Dêlavine, where he is to have remained for five days until the lecture (p. 386). Marable cites as evidence Nicol Davidson, “Alioune Diop and the African Renaissance,” which does not mention Malcolm X or his visit to Paris. Malcolm X’s travel diary, located in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, appears to have its final entry on November 16, 1964, and his FBI file picks him up in the United States on November 24, 1964. In this case, I find Carlos Moore’s representation of the events and the timetable more credible than Marable’s account.
449took him to the Café Realis: Carlos Moore, “Malcolm, je me souviens,” Présence Africain, Spring 1967, 85.
449“Chester Himes is here?”: Moore interview.
450“that few people had known”: Moore, “Malcolm, je me souviens,” 88.
450“Carlos knows this”: Moore, interview.
450“You’re being gullible”: Ibid.
450“beautiful things”: Carlos Moore to CH, May 19, 1975, CHP-T, box 4, folder 19.
451“we are where we are”: Ishmael Reed to CH, November 23, 1970, CHP-T, box 5, folder 13.
451“They’re going to get me”: Moore interview.
451Chester and Lesley silently hunkered: Lesley Packard Himes, interview with author, May 2009.
451“bridge between the peoples”: Malcolm X, “The Afro-American in the Face of the African Revolution,” p. 1, Carlos Moore Papers, box 6, folder “1964–1965,” Ralph Bunche Center, University of California at Los Angeles.
452“Whoever a person”: Ibid, pp. 8, 9.
452I AM DREADFULLY SORRY: CH, telegram to Mrs. Carl Van Vechten, December 23, 1964, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1962–1964.”
452declaring him an “undesirable”: Malcolm X and Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Ballantine, 1965), 434.
453“the more I keep thinking”: Ibid., 438.
15. A MOOR IN SPAIN
455Putnam would publish: Lewis Nichols, “In and Out of Books: Collaboration,” New York Times Book Review, April 4, 1965, 8; Publishing agreement, G.P. Putnam, Stein and Day, and Maurice Girodias, June 15, 1965, CHP-T, box 19, folder 2.
455“All that most middle-class Negroes”: Pinktoes, advertisement, New York Times Book Review, July 11, 1965, 11.
455described his writing process: Melvin Van Peebles, interview with author, February 2010.
455“My novel moves”: MLA, 295.
455“like a cross”: Ibid., 297.
455“You should marry”: Ibid., 301.
456“a humorous catalog”: René Micha, “Les Paroissiens de Chester Himes,” Les Temps Modernes, February 1965, 1517.
456left a manuscript: Lesley Packard Himes, interview with author, May 2009.
457“Chester needed a fucking nurse”: Van Peebles interview.
457“I hated to give up”: MLA, 301.
457“extraordinary series”: Anthony Boucher, “Criminals at Large” (review of Cotton Comes to Harlem by CH), New York Times Book Review, February 7, 1965, 43.
457“More important in this book”: Jory Sherman, “Crime and Social Comment” (review of Cotton Comes to Harlem by CH), Los Angeles Times, February 14, 1965, B16.
458“losses into a modest profit”: William Targ to CH, November 28, 1967, CHP-T, box 2, folder 4.
458“quick, sharp, sexy”: MLA, 302.
458“faster than any car”: Ibid., 303.
458write a graphic novel adaptation: CH, “La Reine des pommes,” adapted and realized by Melvin Van Peebles, drawings by George Wolinski, Hara Kiri, June 1966, 9–53.
459“I don’t write for money”: MLA, 310.
459“In its wild funhouse-mirror way”: Anthony Boucher, “Criminals at Large” (review of The Heat’s On by CH), New York Times, January 16, 1966, 18.
459“I have a feeling”: Anthony Boucher, “Criminals at Large” (review of The Crazy Kill by CH), New York Times Book Review, December 6, 1959, 42.
460“perverse blend”: Anthony Boucher, “Criminals at Large” (review of The Real Cool Killers by CH), New York Times Book Review, September 6, 1959, 13.
460“turbulent, nightmarish”: Anthony Boucher, “Criminals at Large” (review of The Big Gold Dream by CH), New York Times Book Review, March 6, 1960, 43.
460“underrated and underpublicized”: Andrew Sarris, “Good Intentions,” New York Times Book Review, April 24, 1966, 20.
460“the wildest of camps”: Boucher, “Criminals at Large” (review of Cotton Comes to Harlem), February 7, 1965, 43.
460One of the people reading: A. H. Weiler, “Success Spangled Simon,” New York Times, December 4, 1966, 14.
460a biography of Ian Fleming: “Movie Call Sheet: Role for Shelley Winters,” Los Angeles Times, December 6, 1966, D25.
460“I’m convinced they”: Weiler, “Success Spangled Simon,” 14.
461“sumptuous feast”: MLA, 315.
461“American Negro”: Anonymous [Patricia Highsmith], “Balefull of Laughs: Review of Cotton Comes to Harlem by Chester Himes,” Times Literary Supplement, January 20, 1966, 37.
462“beginning to enjoy”: MLA, 319.
462“about my mother”: Don L. Lee, Think Black! (Chicago: Nuace Printers, 1967), 21.
462“people say bad things”: CVV to JAW, August 2, 1962, DCDJ, 1.
463“nothing jelled”: MLA, 327.
463“As I’m sure you know”: Samuel Goldwyn Jr. to CH, December 12, 1966, CHP-T, box 3, folder 20.
464“That was my entire life”: MLA, 337.
464“It has always been my opinion”: CH, “Reading on Your Own,” New York Times Book Review, June 4, 1967, 4.
465“Believing that this cultured”: Ibid.
465“superb” comment: Erik Wensberg to CH, May 19, 1967, CHP-T, box 6, folder 13.
465“expense is no matter”: MLA, 339.
466Chester expressed his fury: Constance Pearlstein to James Sallis, December 10, 1998, LPH, box 1, folder 16.
467LeRoi Jones was arrested: “LeRoi Jones Seized in Newark After Being Hurt,” New York Times, July 15, 1967, 11.
467“Shoot the niggers”: Martin Arnold, “Negroes Battle with Guardsmen,” New York Times, July 15, 1967, 11.
467“never seen until they lie bloody”: CH, “On the Use of Force,” p. 1, CHP-T, box 23, folder “ ‘On the Use of Force’ Photocopy Typescript.”
467“Police brutality toward”: Ibid., p. 7.
468“Every race riot”: Ibid., p. 9.
468“thoughts on writing, writers”: Targ to CH, November 28, 1967.
469“not [as] a detective story”: CH to Marcel Duhamel, April 20, 1968, CHP-T, box 1, folder 11.
469“not up to the standard”: Targ to CH, November 28, 1967.
469“let the book stand”: James Landis to CH, June 28, 1968, CHP-T, box 2, folder 18.
469“Shooting people”: “Ship of Rebels,” Newsweek, April 6, 1970, 15.
469a “most unhappy” Goldwyn: Goldwyn to CH, October 24, 1967, CHP-T, box 3, folder 20.
469“loose construction of a movie”: Goldwyn to CH, November 13, 1967, ibid.
470“with all the screenwriters”: Rosalyn Targ to CH, December 12, 1967, CHP-T, box 1, folder 12.
470“the only milestone”: CH to JAW, June 13, 1969, DCDJ, 83.
471“a nervous, wretched man”: JAW, “Chester Himes Is Getting On,” New York Herald Tribune, October 11, 1964, 21.
471“More than you could”: JAW to CH, December 12, 1968, DCDJ, 52.
471“seeming indifference”: CH to JAW, December 28, 1968, ibid., 54.
471“It’s all right, man”: MLA, 347.
471“A friend of mine”: CH, “Preface,” Blind Man with a Pistol (1969; repr., New York: Vintage, 1989), 5.
472Chester angrily shouted: Richard Gibson to Michel Fabre, May 26, 1988, MF, box 6, folder 18.
472“Deutsche Haus”: Donna Rothraud Meindorfer, interview with author, May 2009.
473estimates were 200,000: Julius Ruiz, “Seventy Years On: Historians and Repressions After the Spanish Civil War,” Journal of Contemporary History (July 2009): 451.
473“Moraira was as racist”: MLA, 369.
473“Spain is not a place”: Rosalyn Targ to CH, December 12, 1967.
473“divorced the United States”: MLA, 355.
473“Comic Suspense Film”: “Comic Suspense Film of Negro Detectives to be Made in Harlem,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 6, 1968, 19.
474“Perhaps that was one”: Goldwyn to Himes, April 24, 1968, CHP-T, box 3, folder 20.
474“offensive”: HF, 87.
474“the Jews had a right”: Ibid.
475“I am trying to show”: HF, 195.
475“ ‘It’s the uprising, nigger!’ ”: CH, Plan B (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1993), 8.
476“ ‘You can’t kill, Black, man’ ”: Ibid., 202.
476“The main thing”: CH to JAW, December 18, 1968, DCDJ, 56.
477“Motherfucking right”: CH to JAW, “Foreword,” Blind Man with a Pistol, 5.
477“Reading Blind Man”: Richard Rhodes, “Blind Man with a Pistol,” New York Times Book Review, February 23, 1969, 32.
477Mystery Writers of America: Allen J. Hubin, “Criminals at Large,” New York Times Book Review, May 10, 1970.
477“I got my standard”: Phil Lomax to CH, August 8, 1969, CHP-T, box 4, folder 17.
478“the highlight of the issue”: Julius Lester, “The First Magazine of Black Writing: Amistad 1,” New York Times Book Review, May 3, 1970, 36.
478“almost sixty now” and “not well”: MLA, 364.
478“the thing that cooled our relationship”: DCDJ-MMH, p. 14.
479“take being black”: Ralph Ellison, dust jacket, Hue and Cry by James A. McPherson (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969).
479“the white press”: HF, 14, 15.
479“the younger writers”: JAW to CH, July 14, 1969, DCDJ, 93.
480“far from being”: James Baldwin, “The Price May Be Too High,” New York Times, February 2, 1969, D9.
480“the best black American”: Shane Stevens, “ ‘The Best Black American Novelist Writing Today,’ ” Chicago Tribune, April 27, 1969, L4.
480“to speak up if he”: Rosalyn Targ to CH, July 30, 1969, CHP-T, box 1, folder 12.
480“White folks won’t know”: JAW to CH, July 14, 1969, 93.
480“I can imagine”: CH to JAW, July 19, 1969, DCDJ, 95.
481“looked like an imbecile child”: CH to JAW, November 2, 1969, ibid., 107.
481“physically difficult”: CH to Joseph Himes, May 9, 1970, TSH, 181, folder “Correspondence Chester Himes.”
481“Nice to hear from”: Ken McCormick to CH, August 18, 1969, CHP-T, box 1, folder 8.
481he offered $10,000: Rosalyn Targ to CH, April 13, 1970, CHP-T, box 1, folder 12; Chester Himes, contract for My Life of Absurdity, Doubleday, July 16, 1975, CHP-T, box 14, folder 1. CH received a $5000 advance on April 29, 1971.
481“I’m not very happy”: CH to JAW, July 27, 1970, DCDJ, 133.
482“nigger-lover”: JAW to CH, June 30, 1969, ibid., 89.
482“got a lot of things cracking”: JAW to CH, April 15, 1970, ibid., 123.
482“Look, I have talked”: MMH-DCDJ, 214.
482“impressive as an overall”: William Targ to CH, April 7, 1970, CHP-T, box 2, folder 4.
482“colorful, exciting life-style and wit”: Vincent Canby, “Ossie Davis’ Cotton Comes to Harlem,” New York Times, June 11, 1970, 50.
482Cotton broke the opening-day box-office records: “Theaters to Remain Open 24 Hours Daily for Cotton Comes to Harlem,” Philadelphia Tribune, July 18, 1970, 21; Eithne Quinn, “ ‘Tryin’ to Get Over’: Super Fly, Black Politics, and Post Civil Rights Film Enterprise,” Cinema Journal 49, no. 2 (Winter 2010): 86–87.
482“the best way”: Gene Siskel, “Trying Too Hard,” Chicago Tribune, May 28, 1970, C17.
483“Chester Himes has been writing”: Carole Lyles, “A Movie About Blacks Without Social Comment,” New York Amsterdam News, June 13, 1970, 20.
483“a sense of liberation”: Canby, “Ossie Davis’ Cotton Comes to Harlem,” 50.
483“cut the gut and heart”: Lindsay Paterson, “In Harlem, a James Bond with Soul,” New York Times, June 15, 1969, D15.
483“tapped [his] literary vault”: JAW to CH, May 13, 1970, DCDJ, 127.
483parent company M-G-M: Jon Hartman, “The Trope of Blaxploitation in Critical Responses to Sweetback,” Film History 6, no. 3 (Autumn 1994): 391.
483the sound economic value: They were assessed by the industry in the following rank: Shaft ($7 million), Cotton ($5.1 million), and Sweetback ($4.1 million). See Lawrence Cohn, “All-Time Film Rental Champs,” Variety, May 10, 1993, C76–106, 108; Quinn, “ ‘Tryin’ to Get Over.’ ”
483the NAACP generated the term: Quinn, “ ‘Tryin’ to Get Over,’ ” 87.
483“blaxploitation”: Junius Griffin quoted in “NAACP Takes Militant Stand on Black Exploitation Films,” Hollywood Reporter, August 10, 1972.
484“big hit”: Helen Jackson to CH, September 30, 1970, CHP-T, box 4, folder 13.
484“general American attitude”: CH to William Targ, January 3, 1971, CHP-T, box 6, folder 1.
485“As you know”: Jackson to CH, May 14, 1971, CHP-T, box 4, folder 13.
485“Major authors are not”: Jackson to CH, June 10, 1971, ibid.
485“For those who wonder”: Maya Angelou to Helen Jackson, December 27, 1971, CHP-T, box 6, folder 1.
486“influenced by your work and personality”: Lindsey Barrett to CH, n.d., CHP-T, box 3, folder 3.
486“a very lasting and important”: Clarence Major to CH, December 31, 1971, CHP-T, box 4, folder 19.
486“son-of-a-bitchery”: Arnold Gingrich, “A Writer Writes,” Chicago Tribune, March 26, 1972, I-12.
487“direct, straightforward, honest”: Nathan Irvin Huggins, “The Helpless Victim” (review of The Quality of Hurt by Chester Himes), New York Times Book Review, March 12, 1972, 5.
487“I feel that it is”: Julius Lester to CH, n.d. [Spring 1972], CHP-T, box 4, folder 17.
487“Because this book tells”: Julius Lester, “Letter to the Editor: The Quality of Hurt,” New York Times Book Review, April 30, 1972, 39.
487“raw” and “penetrating”: Michael J. Bandler, “Travails of a Black Author” (review of The Quality of Hurt by Chester Himes), Los Angeles Times, July 14, 1972, F6.
487the “truthful” portrait: Myra D. Bain, “Himes Tells a Special Tale: Rev. of The Quality of Hurt by Chester Himes,” New York Amsterdam News, March 25, 1972, D7.
487“an angry, alienated black”: Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, “Another Quality Not Strain’d” (review of The Quality of Hurt by Chester Himes), New York Times, March 8, 1972, 41.
488seven hundred guests: “Chester Himes Book Party,” Black World, March 1972, 92.
488“all of us really enjoyed”: Ishmael Reed to CH, May 11, 1972, CHP-T, box 5, folder 13; see also Steve Cannon to CH, May 9, 1972, CHP-T, box 3, folder 5.
488Chester had stabbed: Keith Gilyard, interview with author, January 2013.
489“who are proponents”: JAW to CH, January 12, 1972, DCDJ, 152.
489STOPRY [sic] INCOMPLETE: Skip Gates, telegram to CH, August 20, 1973, CHP-T, box 3, folder 14.
489“I think fame”: Nikki Giovanni to CH, November 13, 1973, CHP-T, box 3, folder 18.
16. AFRO-AMERICAN PEOPLE’S NOVELIST
490“I still suffer”: CH to Director General, American Hospital, Madrid, January 9, 1973, CHP-T, box 18, folder 1.
490“admittedly chauvinistic”: CH, Black on Black: Baby Sister and Selected Writings (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973), 7.
491“no jive or rage”: “Black on Black,” Chicago Tribune, February 11, 1973, F3.
491“substantially improved sight”: Joseph Himes Jr. to CH, May 28, 1973, CHP-T, box 4, folder 5.
491“I can see”: Joseph Himes Jr. to CH, May 27, 1974, ibid.
491attained veracity: CH to Marcel Duhamel, February 25, 1974, CHP-T, box 3, folder 8.
492“the best of my writing”: CH to Sandy Richardson, May 2, 1974, CHP-T 180, box 1, folder 9.
492in July 1974 Chester went: CH to Ishmael Reed, July 23, 1974, CHP-T, box 5, folder 13.
492“My health has improved”: CH to Michel Fabre, January 13, 1975, MF, box 41, folder 4.
492“The Harlem detective stories”: CH to Richardson, May 2, 1974.
493“I have great hopes”: CH to Fabre, January 13, 1975.
493“Gravedigger [sic] and Coffin Ed”: Ishmael Reed to CH, January 24, 1974, CHP-T, box 5, folder 13.
493“punk shit”: Robert Adams, interview with author, April 2003. This assertion is lent validity by a short aside Willa Thompson once made in 1955, suggesting that when they lived together in 1954 she had suspected CH of having had a liaison with a boy—see WT to CH (“Darling: I have your special here”), n.d. [c. June 1955], CHP-T, box 5, folder 6. Thompson wrote, “You never mentioned that you saw this strange boy who gave you the book in London around that time. You never mentioned the girl whose name is on the French edition of If He Hollers. . . .”
493“my mind is getting”: CH to Rosalyn Targ, March 1, 1976, CHP-T, box 8, folder 10.
493“My health has deteriorated”: CH to Rosalyn Targ, November 11, 1976, ibid.
494“My sins are catching”: CH to Jean Himes, February 25, 1976, CHP-T, box 4, folder 11.
494“I will probably be dead”: CH to Duhamel, May 11, 1976, CHP-T, box 3, folder 8.
494“How does it feel”: Reed to CH, October 22, 1976, CHP-T, box 5, folder 13.
494“I hope that I haven’t: CH to Joseph Himes Jr., November 25, 1976, CHP-T, box 4, folder 7.
494“taken together, the two volumes”: Don Bredes, “The Purgative Thoughts of Chester Himes,” Los Angeles Times, March 20, 1977, U7.
495“knuckleheaded” editor: Al Young to CH, May 7, 1972, CHP-T, box 6, folder 18.
495“a singularly poignant autobiography”: Al Young, “Rev. My Life of Absurdity: The Autobiography of Chester Himes, Volume II by Chester Himes,” New York Times Book Review, February 13, 1977, 7. Online.
495“I got you beat”: MLA, 30.
495“I should not have”: CH to Rosalyn Targ, February 12, 1977, CHP-T, box 1, folder 12.
496“I’ve made a lot”: Walter Coleman to CH, October 18, 1972, CHP-T, box 7, folder 5.
496“sex doesn’t delight me anymore”: CH to Rosalyn Targ, September 22, 1977, CHP-T, box 1, folder 12.
496divorced on May 2: “Le Chambre Matrimoniale, Section 13 du Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris, I6 II8/77 No. 7703417, Divorce, Sieur Himes contre Dame Plater-Johnson; No. 2734 Divorce de Himes, Chester Bomar et Plater-Johnson, Jean L., 30 Novembre 1978, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Nantes,” CHP-T, box 20, folder 8.
496“his moral being is not so great”: Lesley Packard to Joseph Himes Jr., March 3, 1978, CHP-T, box 4, folder 7.
497“things are a mess here”: Joseph Himes Jr. to CH, October 12, 1980, CHP-T, box 4, folder 5.
497the consultant backed out: George Rolfe to CH, September 26, 1980, CHP-T, box 20, folder 4.
497he tumbled onto the ground: Lesley Himes, interview with author, May 2009.
497“his memory is terrible”: Packard to J. Himes Jr., March 3, 1978.
497the American Book Award: Gundar Strads to CH, March 29, 1982, CHP-T, box 5, folder 13.
497“It saddened me enormously”: Rosalyn Targ to Lesley Himes, January 27, 1984, CHP-T, box 2, folder 13.
498hurtful and bitter remarks: Helen Chapparal to Lesley Himes, LPH, box 1, folder 5.
498chiseling knives: MLA, p. 254.
498“When Chester was Chester”: JAW to Lesley Himes, November 28, 1984, DCDJ, 162.