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Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone
Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone | James Baldwin
At the height of his theatrical career, the actor Leo Proudhammer is nearly felled by a heart attack. As he hovers between life and death, Baldwin shows the choices that have made him enviably famous and terrifyingly vulnerable. For between Leo's childhood on the streets of Harlem and his arrival into the intoxicating world of the theater lies a wilderness of desire and loss, shame and rage. An adored older brother vanishes into prison. There are love affairs with a white woman and a younger black man, each of whom will make irresistible claims on Leo's loyalty. And everywhere there is the anguish of being black in a society that at times seems poised on the brink of total racial war. Overpowering in its vitality, extravagant in the intensity of its feeling, Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone is a major work of American literature.
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Leftcoastzen
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Happy 100th birthday to James Baldwin. A great mind and a great writer.

vivastory One of the greats 3mo
44 likes1 comment
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Wilkie
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A little bit of Spring in Winter.

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Graywacke
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Pickpick

I got more and more into this kind of sensitive look at a life from the Harlem streets to fame. It‘s a long slow book, and very intimate. Loneliness takes many forms.

(Picture shows Baldwin in 1968, the year the book was published.)

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Graywacke
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Everyone wishes to be loved, but, in the event, nearly no one can bear it.

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Graywacke
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The next book for my Baldwin theme opens with the Leo describing his heart attack while performing on stage.

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Leftcoastzen
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#titlestartswithat # septinbooks18 A Baldwin still on my TBR ,found fairly recently at a yard sale.

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MoonChild7
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"If we had been on the island which had been witness to his birth instead of the unspeakable island of Manhattan, he felt, and I also eventually began to feel, that it would not have been so hard for us all to trust and love each other."

12 likes1 stack add