Novel
If He Hollers Let Him Go
Chester Himes · 1945
Synopsis
Los Angeles, during the Second World War. Bob Jones, from Ohio, a Black foreman at the Atlas shipyard, wakes from a nightmare. He has a Buick and a fiancée, Alice Harrison, daughter of a doctor from the Black middle class, who advises him to come to terms with inequality. At the yard, Madge, a white worker from Texas, refuses to work with him; she insults him, he answers with an insult, and he is demoted. The story takes place over four days.
Context
The novel appeared in 1945 with Doubleday, Doran. An editor at the house had said that the book sickened her, and Himes often repeated that the publisher had sabotaged it; it was also excluded from a prize awarded by the house. Translated by Albin Michel as early as 1948, it is cited by Frantz Fanon in Peau noire, masques blancs. In 1958, Himes received the Grand prix de littérature policière for the first novel of his Harlem cycle. The book was adapted for the cinema in 1968, in a very loose version.
Who it is for
A short novel, in the first person, with constant verbal violence. Only one French translation, from 1948, reissued in Folio.
Prizes and reception
Brief and mixed reception on publication; the Library of America today ranks it first among its author's major works.
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The pages consulted to check this page.