If Beale Street Could Talk

Last updated
If Beale Street Could Talk
IfBealeStreetCouldTalk.JPG
First edition
Author James Baldwin
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Publisher Dial Press
Publication date
June 17, 1974
Media typePrint (hardback)
Pages197
ISBN 0-7181-1126-5
OCLC 3150118
813/.5/4
LC Class PZ4.B18 If3 PS3552.A45

If Beale Street Could Talk is a 1974 novel by American writer James Baldwin. His fifth novel (and 13th book overall), it is a love story set in Harlem in the early 1970s. [1] [2] The title is a reference to the 1916 W.C. Handy blues song "Beale Street Blues", named after Beale Street in Downtown Memphis, Tennessee.

Contents

It was adapted as a film of the same name, written and directed by Barry Jenkins, and released in theaters on December 14, 2018. It garnered an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Regina King.

Summary

The book follows a relationship between a 19-year-old girl named Tish, whose given name is Clementine Rivers, and a 22-year-old sculptor named Fonny, whose given name is Alonzo Hunt. They grew up in the same neighborhood in New York City and are childhood friends. They fall in love and become engaged. The novel takes place after Fonny has been falsely accused of raping a woman, and arrested and jailed awaiting his trial. Tish learns that she is pregnant after Fonny is incarcerated and must rely on her and Fonny's family for support. The failures of the criminal justice system keep Fonny incarcerated. [3]

Beale Street is the first Baldwin novel to focus exclusively on a Black love story; it is also the only novel in his corpus narrated by a woman. Published at the tail end of the Black Arts Movement, it explores love within Black life, centering on the emotional bonds holding two African American families together. [4]

Critical reception

Reviewing the novel in The New York Times in 1974, the novelist Joyce Carol Oates described the book as "a moving, painful story" but "ultimately optimistic. It stresses the communal bond between members of an oppressed minority, especially between members of a family," offering

"a quite moving and very traditional celebration of love. It affirms not only love between a man and a woman, but love of a type that is dealt with only rarely in contemporary fiction--that between members of a family, which may involve extremes of sacrifice." [2]

Anatole Broyard, also writing for The New York Times, was less sanguine. Deeming the novel a "sentimental love story," he writes,

I get the feeling that Mr. Baldwin doesn't worry overmuch about the authenticity of his books. He knows that, with all his faults, a sizable proportion of the American public will love him still. He is a brand name by now. In fact, he is so dated—I think even Richard Wright is more contemporary—that he might even qualify for our current nostalgia craze. An urbanized "Perils of Pauline," his book could make it equally well as a "gothic" novel, sending thrills of synthetic terror down the spine of that legendary old lady in Dubuque. [5]

In 2015, Stacia L. Brown, writing in Gawker , similarly found Beale Street "belong[ed] to a collection of literature that seeks to humanize black men, through their relationships with parents, lovers, siblings, and children. It swan-dives from optimism to bleakness and rises from the ash of dashed hopes." [1]

When Baldwin spoke to Hugh Hebert of The Guardian upon the release of Beale Street in 1974, he said about his work: "Every poet is an optimist... But on the way to that optimism 'you have to reach a certain level of despair to deal with your life at all.'" [6]

Film adaptation

Barry Jenkins wrote and directed the film adaptation of the novel, starring KiKi Layne as Tish and Stephan James as Fonny, with Regina King (who won an Academy Award for her role). The adaptation was produced by Plan B Entertainment, and was screened at the St. Louis International Film Festival in November 2018. Annapurna Pictures released the film on December 14, 2018.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

<i>The Human Stain</i> 2000 novel by Philip Roth

The Human Stain is a novel by Philip Roth, published May 5, 2000. The book is set in Western Massachusetts in the late 1990s. It is narrated by 65-year-old author Nathan Zuckerman, who appears in several earlier Roth novels, and who also figures in both American Pastoral (1997) and I Married a Communist (1998), two books that form a loose trilogy with The Human Stain. Zuckerman acts largely as an observer as the complex story of the protagonist, Coleman Silk, a retired professor of classics, is slowly revealed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Baldwin</span> American writer (1924–1987)

James Arthur Baldwin was an American writer. He garnered acclaim for his work across several forms, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, was published in 1953; decades later, Time magazine included the novel on its list of the 100 best English-language novels released from 1923 to 2005. His first essay collection, Notes of a Native Son, was published in 1955.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anatole Broyard</span> African -American writer and literary critic (1920–1990)

Anatole Paul Broyard was an American writer, literary critic, and editor who wrote for The New York Times. In addition to his many reviews and columns, he published short stories, essays, and two books during his lifetime. His autobiographical works, Intoxicated by My Illness (1992) and Kafka Was the Rage: A Greenwich Village Memoir (1993), were published after his death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Regina King</span> American actress and director (born 1971)

Regina Rene King is an American actress and director. She has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and four Primetime Emmy Awards. In 2019, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Tish is a feminine given name and a nickname, frequently for Letitia or variations thereof. Tish is also an uncommon surname, accounting for around 500 people in the 2000 US Census and 550 in the 2010 US Census, around 95% of whom self-identified as white.

<i>Why Are We in Vietnam?</i> 1967 novel by Norman Mailer

Why Are We In Vietnam? (WWVN) is a 1967 novel by the American author Norman Mailer. It focuses on a hunting trip to the Brooks Range in Alaska where a young man is brought by his father, a wealthy businessman who works for a company that makes cigarette filters and is obsessed with killing a grizzly bear. As the novel progresses, the protagonist is increasingly disillusioned that his father resorts to hunting tactics that seem dishonest and weak, including the use of a helicopter and taking credit for killing a bear. At the end of the novel, the protagonist tells the reader that he is soon going to serve in the Vietnam War as a soldier.

<i>Tell Me How Long the Trains Been Gone</i> Book by James Baldwin

Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone is James Baldwin's fourth novel, first published in 1968.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colman Domingo</span> American actor (born 1969)

Colman Jason Domingo is an American actor, writer, and director. Known for his roles on stage and screen, Domingo has received various accolades including a Primetime Emmy Award and nominations for a Tony Award and Olivier Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephan James (actor)</span> Canadian actor

Stephan James is a Canadian actor. After starring in a string of television series as a teenager, he rose to prominence upon winning a Canadian Screen Award for Best Actor for his role as track and field sprinter Jesse Owens in the 2016 film Race.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Teyonah Parris</span> American actress

Teyonah Parris is an American actress. A graduate of Juilliard School, she began acting in 2010. Her first prominent role was playing secretary Dawn Chambers in the AMC drama series Mad Men (2012–2015) and starring in the 2014 independent film Dear White People. Since then, Parris has appeared in Spike Lee's film Chi-Raq (2015), the drama series Empire (2014) and the drama film If Beale Street Could Talk (2018).

<i>The Virgins</i> (novel) Book by Pamela Erens

The Virgins is the second novel by American author Pamela Erens, published in 2013 by Tin House Books. It received accolades from many sources including The New York Times, The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. Publishers Weekly named it one of the best boarding school books of all time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barry Jenkins</span> American filmmaker

Barry Jenkins is an American filmmaker. After making his filmmaking debut with the short film My Josephine (2003), he directed his first feature film Medicine for Melancholy (2008) for which he received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Feature. He is also a member of The Chopstars collective as a creative collaborator.

James Laxton is an American cinematographer who is best known for his collaborations with filmmaker Barry Jenkins, specifically his work on Jenkins' 2016 film Moonlight, for which he won an Independent Spirit Award and received his first Academy Award nomination.

<i>If Beale Street Could Talk</i> (film) 2018 film directed by Barry Jenkins

If Beale Street Could Talk is a 2018 American romantic drama film written and directed by Barry Jenkins and based on James Baldwin's 1974 novel of the same name. It stars an ensemble cast that includes KiKi Layne, Stephan James, Colman Domingo, Teyonah Parris, Michael Beach, Dave Franco, Diego Luna, Pedro Pascal, Ed Skrein, Brian Tyree Henry, and Regina King. The film follows a young woman who, with her family's support, seeks to clear the name of her wrongly charged lover and prove his innocence before the birth of their child.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KiKi Layne</span> American actress (born 1991)

Kiandra "KiKi" Layne is an American actress. She is best known for her starring roles in such films as the romantic drama If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), the drama Native Son (2019), the action superhero film The Old Guard (2020), and the romantic comedy Coming 2 America (2021).

The 90th National Board of Review Awards, honoring the best in film for 2018, were announced on November 27, 2018.

The 17th Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Awards were announced on December 3, 2018.

Dominique Thorne is an American actress. She appeared in the films If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) and Judas and the Black Messiah (2021). In 2022, she began playing Riri Williams / Ironheart with the Marvel Cinematic Universe feature film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

<i>If Beale Street Could Talk</i> (soundtrack) 2018 film score by Nicholas Britell

If Beale Street Could Talk (Original Motion Picture Score) is the score album to the 2018 film of the same name directed by Barry Jenkins based on James Baldwin's 1974 novel of the same name. Featuring original music written and composed by Nicholas Britell, the film marked his second collaboration with Jenkins after the Academy Award-winning Moonlight (2016). According to Britell, he used two different soundscapes to depict the relationship between Clementine "Tish" Rivers (KiKi Layne) and Alonzo "Fonny" Hunt (Stephan James) as well as the horrors of alleged accusation over Fonny, and the aftermath surrounds. The primary instruments used in most of the scores, were strings and brass to depict the relationship, while orchestra and jazz also accompany the score.

References

  1. 1 2 Brown, Stacia L. (April 9, 2015). "What James Baldwin's Writing Tells Us About Today". Gawker. Retrieved 2017-07-16.
  2. 1 2 Oates, Joyce Carol (May 19, 1974). "If Beale Street Could Talk". www.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2017-07-16.
  3. ↑ Brody, Richard (December 14, 2018). "'The Front Row: The Politics of Memory in Barry Jenkins's "If Beale Street Could Talk"'". The New Yorker . Retrieved May 25, 2019.
  4. ↑ Woubshet, Dagmawi (January 9, 2019). "How James Baldwin's Writings About Love Evolved: The author is best known for arguing that emotional connection could help heal America's racial divides. But his 1974 novel If Beale Street Could Talk focused instead on the bonds that held black people together". The Atlantic . Retrieved May 25, 2019.
  5. ↑ Broyard, Anatole (May 17, 1974). "No Color Line in Cliches". The New York Times. Retrieved 2019-11-15.
  6. ↑ Hebert, Hugh (2016-06-18). "James Baldwin's much anticipated new novel – archive". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2017-07-16.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.