Leo Proudhammer is a lot of things at the beginning of this novel. He’s 39, he’s a famous stage actor, he’s world-traveled, he’s a Black man who grew up in Harlem, and he’s bisexual. He’s also just had a stress induced heart-attack that’s nearly killed him. In his post-attack state, he begins to reflect on his life to this point. He begins by telling about his childhood, where he and his seven-years-older brother looked out for each from their tyrant of a father. There’s the dangers of being a young black boy in New York city, there’s the fraught nature of school in the US, and there’s plenty else going on. There’s also the loss of his older brother, not to death, but first to the war in Europe, and second to being an adult, while Leo is still growing up. Also, Leo’s outsider status as a Queer Black actor in a field written and designed for white actors, straight actors, and one Black actor (Paul Robeson, who is physically larger than life, while Leo is just not), means that he’s also trying to carve his way through uncertain and unwelcome paths.
The novel then tells of his adolescence and young adulthood as he learned more about himself personally, socially, and sexually. As he begins to act more so, and what this not only allows him, but also requires of him.
The novel is tense and painful throughout, as I tend to find all of James Baldwin’s novels, but that’s because while the personal essays and intellectual essays are tinged with anger, they’re also by nature attempting to rationally understand the world. The novels tend to feel the world, and that feeling is not a fully rational set of acts.
