Another Country

This weekend I wandered to my book shelf and pulled off my 1^st edition copy of the James Baldwin’s classic, Another Country. I was driven by my recent return to my own creative writing; the truth in his words that have been flying across social media in the wake of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, and the recent Supreme Court decision legally supporting gay marriage.

Baldwin was one of my childhood heroes, as were many of the classic literary figures of the last century. I was lucky to be introduced to Claude Brown’s, Manchild in the Promised Land, by my 7^th grade creative writing teacher, when he noticed my boredom with the required reading. My parents approved me to check out and read the book, and after a long 6 months of getting through the book, and asking many uncomfortable questions, I was hooked. I was then opened to the world over the next several years to Ellison, Wright, Hughes, Hurston, Angelou, and most prominently, Baldwin. The years before had been a childhood spent exploring African-American and African history through encyclopedias, biographies written for children, and magazines.  These books allowed a young Black kid, living in a predominately white and conservative suburb of Los Angeles, the opportunity to connect to African-American experiences across the country, if not, the world. Manchild and later Baldwin’s, Go Tell It On The Mountain, also connected me to the experiences of other Black male experiences that was absent in the required reading in most of my classes.

Another Country, once I read it in early high school, instantly became one of my favorite books, and occupies that space in my life until this day. It not only introduced me to many different types of relationships and lifestyles, but also helps to counter the constant racist, homophobic, sexist, and other norms that existed in my immediate and broader environment. As a young straight male, Baldwin’s illustration of gay and bisexual characters were transformative in how I would positively perceive all individuals in society, and instilled the value that we all had the same struggles and human emotion, and desire for love in our lives. The early 80’s environment that I read this 1963 classic in did not embrace this humanity.

Now I embark on this journey again, reading a novel that I have read more than any other (I don’t re-read books often), wondering what my thoughts, feeling, reactions, emotions, and insights will be.  I am only a few pages in, and already understand, and feel what drew me in over 30 years ago. In the coming months I will share how the reading of this classis sits with me a generation later.