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Just Above My Head

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Just Above My Head
First edition
AuthorJames Baldwin
LanguageEnglish
PublisherDial Press
Publication date
1979
Publication placeUnited States
Pages597
ISBN0-8037-4777-2

Just Above My Head is James Baldwin's sixth and last novel, first published in 1979. He wrote it in his house in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France.

Plot introduction

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The novel tells the life story of a group of friends, from preaching in Harlem, through to experiencing "incest, war, poverty, the civil-rights struggle, as well as wealth and love and fame—in Korea, Africa, Birmingham, New York City, Paris."[1]

Characters

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  • Arthur Montana, a gay man who becomes the world-famous "Emperor of Soul". He started out in a quartet, the Trumpets of Zion.
  • Hall Montana, Arthur's brother, a married man in his forties.
  • Ruth Granger, Hall's wife. Hall met her at a fundraiser.
  • Paul Montana, Arthur and Hall's late father. He was born in Tallahassee, Florida, grew up in New Orleans, moved to California and finally to New York City.
  • Florence Montana, Hall and Arthur's mother.
  • Tony, Hall's son.
  • Odessa, Hall's daughter.
  • Faulkner, a masochistic white man Arthur knew.
  • Crunch, Arthur's lover. He was a member of the Trumpets of Zion. His real name was Jason Hogan.
  • Red, a member of the Trumpets of Zion. He has become a drug addict and been to prison several times.
  • Lorna, Red's wife. She has left him, with their two sons.
  • Peanut, a member of the Trumpets of Zion. He was later murdered.
  • Jimmy, a neighbour of the Montanas when they were younger.
  • Julia, Jimmy's sister.
  • Brother Joel Miller, Julia's and Jimmy's father.
  • Amy Miller, Julia's and Jimmy's mother. She dies shortly after a miscarriage.
  • Reverend Parker, Julia's Evangelist reverend when she was younger.
  • Mrs Bessie, a blind old black woman whom Julia took to the church when she was younger.
  • Sidney, a bartender. He was brought up by his grandmother, who died recently.
  • Martha, a young woman who works at the Harlem Hospital. She is Hall's ex-girlfriend. Her aunt, Josephine, is from the West Indies.
  • Mr Clarence Webster, a black music teacher and impresario for the Trumpets of Zion.
  • Sister Dorothy Green.
  • Blanche, Hall's landlady.
  • Faulkner Grey, a coworker of Hall's.
  • Mrs Isabel Reed, a high school teacher from Richmond.
  • Mr Reed, a lawyer from Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
  • Reverend Williams, a preacher from Richmond.
  • Mrs Elkins, a hostess in Atlanta, Georgia.
  • Guy Lazar, a ginger-haired French man Arthur dates in Paris.

Major themes

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The novel enmeshes racism with homophobia, with an "explicit association of Birmingham and Sodom".[2][3]

Allusions to other works

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Allusions to actual history

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Literary significance and criticism

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It has been suggested that the novel links the trope of the internalisation of history to what W. E. B. Du Bois defined as the African American's "longing to attain self-conscious manhood".[4]

It has been suggested that Crunch subscribes to the idea propounded by Auguste Ambroise Tardieu and Cesare Lombroso that homosexuality was inscribed upon a homosexual's flesh,[5] when he wonders, "if his change was visible".[6]

References

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  1. ^ John Romano, "Just Above My Head" (review), The New York Times, September 23, 1979.
  2. ^ James Baldwin, Just Above My Head, New York: Dell Publishing, 1984, p. 183.
  3. ^ Lee Edelman, Homographesis: Essays in Gay Literary and Cultural Theory, Routledge, New York & London, 1994, p. 67.
  4. ^ Edelman, Homographesis (1994), p. 62.
  5. ^ Edelman, Homographesis (1994), pp. 5 and 69.
  6. ^ Baldwin, Just Above My Head (1984), p. 226.