Just Above My Head

Probably one of the more underappreciated novels in American literature. It is unfair to charecterize Baldwin as merely a social critic of the civil rights era. He stands alongside Dickens as one of the great writers of any era, with the ability to articualte an understanding of human nature that trancends any era and stands second to none.

I first came across the book as a teenager, rooting around amidst the books my brother left behind. I was just coming out then, and decided to try and read it. Much of it flew over my head then, but upon returning to it as an adult, I found much here to treasure. The characters not only inhabit the pages, but leap right off them at times, and the reader feels like he would want to sit in a room with them, talk with them, laugh with them and grieve with them. As a black gay man, it's nearly an autobiographical read, showing how far ahead of his time Baldwin was. It definitely comes highly recommended from this reader.

This is one of the best written, most beautiful books I've ever read. If any one book could be said to distill James Baldwin's entire life, this could be it, at least among his fiction. The sense of love, compassion, and empathy Baldwin has for his characters is tangible. Many of the passages are poetic in their power; Baldwin excels at finding the nuance, the meanings in a gesture, a glance, a touch. Baldwin was a black gay man but I believe that in this book he has transcended both race and sex, and is writing about something more basic and yet more complex: relationships between *human beings*. For those who grew up in the 1960s and 70s, it's impossible to overstate the impact Baldwin had on many of our lives (even in my case, and I'm Caucasian).I was lucky enough to hear Baldwin lecture 20 years ago; Just Above My Head had been out for about a year and I was able to get my copy autographed and personalized. He was as arresting a speaker as he was a writer.In the short list of the most deeply felt, most moving, most powerful books written in the 20th century, this has to come near the top.

The people of Just Above My Head-- all of them, not just Julia, or Hall, or Arthur-- but the "little" characters too, all live truly as one reads. I've lost track of how many times I've read the book in its entirety, much less in bits and pieces, but every time I go down into it these characters overwhelm me. I can smell them, feel their heat. Absolutely one of my favorite books of all time.

When I read this book for the first time I was so deeply moved that I was left ranting and raving to all of my friends who share a passion for great American literature. Baldwin's even-handed, almost objective analysis of the American preoccupation with race and human sexuality leaves the reader with a changed perspective on being American. Too many books have love and politics central to their themes, however Baldwin takes this overworked subject matter and creates something truly original and timeless