Chester B. Himes
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236“I expect by now”: Langston Hughes to CVV, May 13, 1947, ibid., 246.
236“Most of the people”: Langston Hughes to Blanche Knopf, August 26, 1947, LH, box 97, folder 1823–1830.
237“What he has to say”: Richard Wright, “If I had the power,” June 5, 1947, AAK.
237“this fine statement”: CH to Richard Wright, June 14, 1947, RW, box 99, folder 1393.
237“beautifully written”: Langston Hughes, “Here to Yonder: One Old One New,” Chicago Defender, May 17, 1947, 14; Horace Cayton, “A Terrifying Cross Section of Chicago,” Chicago Tribune, May 4, 1947, B3.
237“marital conflict”: CH to Richard Wright, n.d. [c. June 16, 1947], RW, box 99, folder 1393.
237“Chester Himes’ Lonely Crusade”: Richard Wright, “COPY OF BLURB FROM ‘RICHARD WRIGHT,’ ” June 24, 1947, AAK.
238“Honestly, it is rather nice”: CH to CVV, n.d. [c. August 8, 1947], box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1946–1947.”
238“a great work of art”: Horace Cayton to William Cole, August 18, 1947, AAK.
238“this novel boasts”: CVV to William Cole, n.d., AAK.
239“happy memories”: “People Who Read and Write,” the New York Times Book Review, August 10, 1947, 8.
239“among the most promising”: “Books: ‘A Negro’s Bitter Pen,’ ” Newsweek, September 8, 1947, 82.
240“fustle and bustle”: CH to CVV, September 10, 1947, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1946–1947.”
240“Remember, son, New York”: QH, 100.
240“tightly constructed”: Constance Curtis, “About Books and Authors: Rev. of Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes,” New York Amsterdam News, September 13, 1947, 11.
240“the story has power”: Arna Bontemps, review of Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes, New York Herald Tribune, September 7, 1947, 8.
240“terrible and tragic”: Marian Sims, “A Life Scarred by Fear: Rev. of Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes,” Atlanta Journal, September 7, 1947, clipping in AAK.
240“The victim is the classic”: John Farrelly, review of Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes, New Republic, October 6, 1947, 550.
240“I didn’t like Lonely Crusade”: Willard Motley to CH, September 3, 1947, in James R. Giles and Jerome Klinkowitz, “The Emergence of Willard Motley in Black American Literature,” Negro American Literature Forum 6 (Summer 1972): 32
241“regret exceedingly”: CH to Willard Motley, n.d. [c. mid-September 1947], MF, box 2, folder 2.
241“We learn early that Lee”: Williard [sic] Motley, “Book Day: Rev. of Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes,” Chicago Sun, October 1, 1947, clipping in AAK.
241“some white people”: CH, Lonely Crusade, 361.
242“closer to the ofays”: Ed Reeves to CH, n.d. [c. January 1972], CHP-T, box 5, folder 12.
242“Gordon—and his creator Himes”: “Time to Count Your Blessings,” Ebony, November 1947, 44.
242“It has been rumored”: “Books of the Day: Rev. of Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes,” The People’s Voice, September 20, 1947.
242“a Negro intellectual”: Martin Harvey, “Worker’s Bookshelf: Rev. of Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes,” The Militant, November 24, 1947, clipping in AAK.
242“It was not that the Communist Party”: CH, Lonely Crusade, 255.
243“I cannot recall”: Lloyd L. Brown, “White Flag,” New Masses, September 9, 1947, 18.
243“extreme leftists”: Emerson Price, “New Book by Ex-Clevelander Arouses Controversy Among Critics,” Cleveland Press, November 15, 1947, clipping in AAK.
243“Hatred reeks through”: Stoyan Christowe, review of Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes, Atlantic Monthly, October 1947, 650.
243“bound to stir up”: “Books in Brief,” Forum, October 1947, 249.
243“Such writing”: Milton Klonsky, “The Writing on the Wall: Rev. of Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes,” Commentary, February 1948, 190.
244“sub conscious disturbances”: Chester Himes, “Author’s Protest,” Commentary, March 1948, 474.
244“is one colored person”: J. Saunders Redding, “Book Review: ‘Dear Editor’ by Chester Himes,” Afro-American, January 3, 1948, 4.
244“For the most part”: Ralph Ellison to Ida Guggenheimer, October 8, 1947, RE, box 49, folder “Guggenheimer, Ida.”
245“very poor stuff”: Ida Guggenheimer to Ralph Ellison, October 22, 1947, RE, box 49, folder “Guggenheimer, Ida.”
245“I read the old Himes book”: Stanley Edgar Hyman to Ralph Ellison, October 1, 1947, RE, box 51, folder “Hyman, Stanley Edgar.”
245“Personally I was disappointed”: Ralph Ellison to Richard Wright, February 1, 1948, RW, box 97, folder 1314.
245“Could he fear”: Ibid.
245“It was then”: QH, 102.
246“I will never change”: CH to Richard Wright, October 19, 1952, RW, box 99, folder 1393.
9. INFLICTING A WOUND UPON HIMSELF
247The hardcover sales petered out: CH to CVV, n.d. [c. May 1948], CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
247earned only $1701.89: Ray Meyer, memorandum to Mr. [J. C.] Lesser, November 26, 1947, AAK.
247“a debit balance”: J. C. Lesser, memorandum to Mr. Braunstein and Mr. Meyer, February 27, 1948, AAK.
247“Advances against royalties”: Lurton Blassingame to J. C. Lesser, December 9, 1947, AAK.
248“needed support badly”: QH, 102.
248“It is a great self punishment”: CH to CVV (“Just a line”), n.d. [c. February 1948], CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
248“psychological processes”: CH to Elizabeth Ames, n.d. [c. late February 1948], Yaddo Papers Collection, box 254, folder “Chester Himes,” Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library, New York City.
249“won’t take me long”: CH to CVV (“Just a line”) [c. February 1948].
249“a siege of virus X”: CH to CVV (“Thank you for writing”), n.d. [c. April 1948], CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
249Randolph and Reynolds conveyed: “Civil Disobedience Campaign Outlined,” New York Amsterdam News, April 3, 1948, 1; C. P. Trussell, “Congress Told UMT Racial Bars Would Unleash Civil Disobedience,” New York Times, April 1, 1948, 1.
249“mass civil disobedience”: CH, letter to the editor, Cleveland Call and Post, April 24, 1948, 4B; CH, “Likes Randolph Plan,” Chicago Defender, June 12, 1948, 14.
249“sugar boy”: CH, “These People Never Die,” New York Amsterdam News, May 29, 1948, 24.
249“I don’t have any”: CH to CVV (“Thank you for writing”), n.d. [c. April 1948].
250a nefarious and significant character: James Baldwin, “History as Nightmare: Review of Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes,” New Leader, October 25, 1947, 11.
250“misinformation trimmed with insults”: W. A. Swanberg, Luce and His Empire (New York: Scribner’s, 1972), 399. For a useful assessment of MacArthur, see Richard Halberstam, The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War (New York: Hyperion, 2007), 102–37.
250“guest list”: Elizabeth Ames to CH, April 5, 1948, Yaddo Papers, box 254, folder “Chester Himes.”
251had been slave quarters: Marjory Peabody Waite, Yaddo: Yesterday and Today (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.: Yaddo, 1933), 13.
251typed admonitory notes: John Cheever, “John Cheever,” in Eleanor Clark, John Cheever, Malcolm Cowley, Alfred Kazin, Hortense Calisher, and Gail Godwin, Six Decades at Yaddo (1986; repr., Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008), 2–3.
251“should have come before”: Elizabeth Ames to Malcolm Cowley, May 23, 1942, Malcolm Cowley Papers, box 2, folder 86, Midwest Writers Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago.
251“one or two weird things”: Elizabeth Ames to Malcolm Cowley, September 5, 1947.
252“the formal integration”: Micki McGee, “Creative Power: Yaddo and the Making of American Culture,” in Yaddo: Making American Culture (New York: New York Public Library
and Columbia University, 2008), 10.
252“I do not object”: Edward Sweeney to Elizabeth Ames, June 18, 1942, Yaddo Papers, box 255, folder 29.
252“we have decided”: “Anonymous note in Horace Cayton’s Yaddo file,” April 9, 1962, Yaddo Papers, box 234, folder 23.
252“It is an ideal place”: CH to CVV, May 12, 1948, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
252“beaming Sybarites”: Clark et al., Six Decades at Yaddo, 21.
252“thirteenth century” Catholic girl: Brad Gooch, Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor (Boston: Little, Brown, 2009), 156.
253“a coiled Spring”: Joan Schenkar, The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith (New York: St. Martin’s, 2009),255.
253Highsmith followed Chester: “Notebook/Cahier,” 11–30 May 1948, A-05/17, January 1948 to July 1948, Patricia Highsmith Papers, Swiss Literary Archives, Bern, Switzerland. Schenkar prefers to have Himes attempt to kiss Highsmith in her room, and slightly mistranslates the passage. The word in question is “sienem.”
253“Maybe you remember”: Patricia Highsmith to CH, January 10, 1966, CHP-T, box 4, folder 1.
253“I feel I have”: Schenkar, Talented Miss Highsmith, 257.
254“I was sitting here”: CH to Patricia Highsmith, n.d. [c. April 1965], CHP-T, box 4, folder 1.
254“the boy’s development of homosexuality”: CH to CVV, n.d. [c. May 12, 1948].
254“The Individual in”: “Lonely Crusade Author Speaks at Mandel Hall,” Chicago Defender, May 8, 1948, clipping in AAK.
255“the essential necessity”: CH, “The Dilemma of the Negro Novelist in the U.S.,” in Beyond the Angry Black, ed. John Williams (New York: Cooper Square, 1969), 52.
255“be like inflicting”: Ibid., 53.
255“Any American Negro’s”: Ibid., 54, 56, 57.
255“a dead silence”: QH, 104.
255“Until the period”: Ibid.
255“although I might”: CH to Yves Malartic, May 27, 1952, MF, box 7, folder 4.
256“there has been a lot”: Ames to Cowley, July 26, 1948, Malcolm Cowley Papers, box 2, folder 86, Midwest Writers Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago.
256“a man going home”: CH, “Da-Da-Dee,” CH-CSS, 370.
256“Some day he’d have to”: CH, The Primitive (New York: Signet, 1955), 55.
256“a famous writer”: CH, “Da-Da-Dee,” CH-CSS, 367, 370.
257“felt more like just lying”: CH, The Primitive, 60.
257“desperate need”: CH to CVV, June 9, 1948, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
257“ill and our need urgent”: CH to Blanche Knopf, June 11, 1948, AAK.
257“This is a rather unusual request”: Blanche Knopf to CH, June 14, 1948, AAK.
257the term “atomalypse”: CH to Blanche Knopf, June 17, 1948, AAK.
258“a good many now”: Ames to Cowley, July 26, 1948.
258“felt truly sorry”: QH, 104.
258“The support of the family”: QH, 104–5.
258“If I can spend this winter”: CH to CVV, n.d. (“It has really been a source”), n.d. [c. late summer 1948], CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
259Cayton had tried to get off alcohol: Will Thomas [Bill Smith], The Seeking (New York: A. A. Wyn, 1953), 236.
259“moment of lucidity”: CH to CVV, December 22, 1948, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
259“I think in many ways”: Ibid.
260“an autobiographical novel til”: CH to CVV, October 15, 1948, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
260“smutty and profane”: CH to CVV, February 2, 1949, ibid.
260“I know what I have”: CH to CVV, March 24, 1949, ibid.
260the fight to have Norman Mailer’s: Mary Dearborn, Mailer (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999), 53.
261New studies by researchers: While Kinsey began breaking taboos about sexuality early in the 1940s, especially with “Criteria for a Hormonal Explanation of the Homosexual,” Journal of Clinical Endocrinology (May 1941): 424–28, it was at the end of 1947 that popular magazines began to showcase the research, in such articles as Albert Deutsch’s “The Sex Habits of American Men,” Harper’s Magazine, December 1947, 493, and Harold Clemenko, “Toward a Saner Sex Life,” Look, December 9, 1947, 106–7.
26137 percent of American men: Alfred Kinsey et al., Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1948), 656.
261“I had done it”: CFS, 337.
262“ ‘Everyone else seems’ ”: Ibid., 290–91.
263“inclusion in the social”: CH, “Journey Out of Fear,” Tomorrow, June 1949, 42.
263“a subtly dishonest book”: CH to JAW, October 31, 1962, DCDJ, 26.
263after Collier’s accepted: CH, “A Short History of a Story,” The Crisis, November 1949, 307–8.
263“like the Bronx set down”: QH, 108.
264“Life there was like”: Ibid., 119.
264“there was a bit of unpleasantness”: Ibid., 120.
265“Believers in democracy”: “Chester B. Himes Delivers Address to N.C.C. Group,” Durham Morning Herald, July 10, 1950, 2:4; “Negro Novelist Slated to Speak at N.C.C. Today: Chester B. Himes Serves as Adviser to Writing Class,” Durham Morning Herald, July 9, 1950, 1:4
265“no good book”: Herbert A. Weinstock to CH, June 27, 1950, AAK; Langston Hughes, “Some Practical Observations: A Colloquy” Phylon (4th quarter 1950): 307–11.
266deciding to drop the Epps case: “Local Negroes Drop Plan to Challenge State Law,” Durham Morning Herald, July 13, 1950, 2:1. CH misleadingly characterized the paper’s portrait of the case and the coverage given him in his memoir, perhaps a backhanded slap at the prominence of the newspaper in his lecture series.
266“the South land”: Jean Himes to CVV, July 19, 1950, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951”; QH, 124.
266“a celebration memorable”: QH, 125.
266declining to publish it: CH to CVV, July 25, 1950, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
266telephoned Margot Johnson: CH to CVV, April 4, 1951, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
267she sold the foreign rights: CH, contract, La Page International for Editions Corréa, December 23, 1950, CHP-T, box 20, folder 1.
267he was so rude: Anne Smith, interview with author, June 3, 2013.
267“fooling around”: CH to CVV, August 1, 1950, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1948–1951.”
268“deliberately dishonest”: CH to JAW, October 3, 1962, DCDJ, 26.
268“pleasant” Bridgeport: QH, 111.
268speeding ticket: CH, speeding ticket, March 3, 1951, MF, box 7, folder 13.
268“You could be as much”: CH to William Targ, April 6, 1954, CHP-T, box 6, folder 1.
269“Legally I am only indebted”: Memo to B[lanche] W K[nopf] from JCL[esser], “re Chester Himes,” February 8, 1963, AAK. CH’s letter from June 24, 1951, referred to in the memorandum, is missing.
270he would press for money: Ruth Seid to Michel Fabre, June 1, 1988, MF, CHP-T, box 6, folder 31; CH to Lurton Blassingame, n.d. [c. May 1955], CHP-T, box 1, folder 9.
270“That incident shook”: QH, 115.
271“Of course, . . . they had no suitable opening”: Ibid., 131.
271“to lose confidence in myself”: Ibid., 132.
272“I believe the book”: Yves Malartic to CH, December 6, 1951, MF, box 7, folder 4.
272“Please, by all means”: CH to Yves Malartic, December 29, 1951, ibid.
272“My wife and I”: CH to Yves Malartic, n.d. [c. June 1952], ibid.
273“Jean stopped coming”: QH, 132.
10. CADILLACS TO COTTON SACKS
274“Thanks greatly”: CH to Ralph Ellison, March 25, 1952, RE, box 52, folder “Hi Miscellaneous.”
275“the fi
rst allegorical Negro novel”: Horace Cayton, “Newest ‘Hit’ Author Ralph Ellison Gives Literary World New Form, Writing Style,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 10, 1952, 9.
275“always considered”: QH, 132.
275“I’m like an animal”: CH to CVV, February 15, 1952, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1955.”
275“devastatingly penetrating”: Ibid.
276as Van Vechten told people: CVV to JAW, August 2, 1962, DCDJ, 1.
276“the first thing I desired”: QH, 135.
276to Europe “with a friend”: CH to Yves Malartic, April 14, 1952, MF, box 7, folder 4.
277“penetrating as the moment”: WT to CH (“Darling: I have your special here”), n.d. Thursday noontime [c. summer 1955], CHP-T, box 6, folder 5.
277Duggan was found dead on the sidewalk: “Police Seek Cause of Duggan’s Plunge,” Christian Science Monitor, December 22, 1948, 11.
277solid-marble sinks: “Fifth Avenue Mansion Gets New Role,” New York Times, December 16, 1951, 49.
278“he did all he could”: CH to William Targ, April 4, 1954, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20.
278charged Moon with being “subversive”: “Editor Loses Job, Charges a ‘Smear,’ ” New York Times, April 18, 1953, 9.
278“nymphomaniac”: Polly Johnson, interview with Michel Fabre, n.d., MF, box 6, folder 31.
278“impatient for the money”: CH to Yves Malartic, n.d. [c. June 1952], MF, box 7, folder 4.
278For $2000: Ben Zevin to CH, October 16, 1954, CHP-T, box 2, folder 20, QH, 135.
279delivering the preface: Richard Wright, preface, La Croisade de Lee Gordon (Paris: Editions Corréa, 1952), 8.
280“the only one over whom”: CH to Richard Wright, October 19, 1952, RW, box 99, folder 1393.
280“Working hard”: CH to CVV, November 11, 1952. CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1956.”
281“a long time ago”: CH to CVV, November 23, 1952, ibid.
281“I think Vandi hurt”: WT to CH, August 25, 1955, CHP-T, box 6, folder 4.
282“really ‘went’ for”: CH to CVV, n.d. [c. January 1953], CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1952–1956.”
282Having secured on December 31: Zevin to CH, October 16, 1954.
282“magnificent ruin” and “tragic”: Horace Cayton to CH, March 18, 1953, MF, box 2, folder 8.