Me and My House: James Baldwin’s Last Decade in France

Zaborowska (James Baldwin’s Turkish Decade) follows James Baldwin’s final years in this erudite but leaden book, which emphasizes the significance of place in Baldwin’s life and work. Establishing a house/home dichotomy, Zaborowska distinguishes between Baldwin’s national “house”—his birthplace of the U.S., the focus of his political and social concerns—and his homes, the more intimate places where he could enjoy family and friends, mostly outside the U.S. Zaborowska’s special interest is in “the unexplored period” from 1970 until Baldwin’s death in 1987, which he spent in his last home, a rambling house nicknamed Chez Baldwin, in the Provençal village of St. Paul-de-Vence. She describes the house’s significance as a “healing location” and “quiet haven... after the turbulent late 1960s.” She also makes a case for the “underappreciated” books written there, including the YA novel If Beale Street Could Talk and true crime account The Evidence of Things Not Seen, and shares impressions and photographs from her own trips to the house, now partially demolished, following Baldwin’s death. Though the book’s release is well-timed to coincide with a revival of interest in Baldwin’s work, general readers will have difficulty wading through Zaborowska’s academic jargon (“the ever-present differentiated nature of space”). However, Baldwin scholars may find ore to mine. (Apr.)