The Collected Stories of Chester Himes

by Chester Himes

Overview

Spanning 40 years and including Himes's first work, written during his imprisonment in the 1940s, this collection uncovers the internal struggles of black individuals caught between resignation and rage, probing the heart of the African-American experience with wit, indignation, and ruthless honesty.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781560252689
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	03/22/2000
Series:	Himes, Chester Series
Edition description:	Us ed.
Pages:	446
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.12(d)

About the Author

Chester Himes was the author of numerous novels, short stories, essays, and two films. Himes, who began writing while serving a prison term for jewel theft in the early 1940s, is best known for his angry social criticism in books like If He Hollers Let Him Go and Lonely Crusade and for his memorable Harlem detective novels.

Editorial Reviews

★ 11/01/2016
Better known for his "Harlem Cycle" detective novels such as Cotton Comes to Harlem, Himes wrote short stories over 40 years from his first time in prison in the 1940s. These 60 emotionally challenging tales explore the black American experience. (LJ 5/15/91)

Library Journal

Racism, poverty and bad luck are the main players in this volume of 60 stories; when a character gets a hold of $10, it's likely to end in disaster and a $20 debt. Himes, who died in 1984, reveals the underbelly of the Afro-American experience (he began to write while in prison for a jewel theft). In the space of two bleak pages, a black man has his feet burned by a white mob, then amputated by a doctor; when the amputee doesn't rise for the National Anthem, he is struck by a white man. Yet Himes counters the carnage with a dry humor and humanity. In ``Pork Chop Paradise'' an ex-con preacher achieves an apotheosis in the eyes of his flock when he appears to ``turn de cobblestones tuh po'k chops.'' It is, not incidentally, a woman who brings him down. In Himes's stories women frequently--through treachery or love, which in turn inspires crime--cause the ruin of their men. Though Himes ( The Third Generation ) sometimes sketches symbolic fables, more often he's as gritty as a police blotter photo. These stories, written between 1933 and 1979, survive as history, as powerful fiction and, unfortunately, as commentary on the current situation of the Afro-American. (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly