James Baldwin: Living in Fire

Arguing James Baldwin (1924–1987) was the “first African-American radical to make his sexuality” key to his activism, Mullen (W.E.B. Du Bois), an American Studies professor at Purdue University, offers a scrupulous, if somewhat niche in its specifically political focus, biography. Contending that Baldwin’s commitment to public action has been unappreciated by previous scholars, Mullen reveals the early “impress of leftist political thought” on Baldwin during his upbringing in Depression-era Harlem, finding evidence for the “prominence of queer sexuality in young Baldwin’s life and writing” in early notes outlining a more explicit version of his 1953 debut novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain. Mullen then attends to Baldwin’s myriad political involvements and concerns, stretching from the American setting of the civil rights, Black Power, and anti–Vietnam War movements, to the international scene of his later “diasporic wanderings” in Europe and the Middle East. The book then considers Baldwin’s “final acts” and “queer legacies” during the 1980s as a prescient opponent of Reagan conservatism and an intellectual precursor to the “flourishing of black feminism and queer politics.” More an account of Baldwin’s ideological evolution than of his life, this study cannot compete with David Leeming’s 1994 Baldwin biography for breadth or depth, but readers aligned with Baldwin’s political sympathies will appreciate Mullen’s insights. [em](Oct.) [/em]