Abandoning the Black Hero : Sympathy and Privacy in the Postwar African American White-Life Novel.

Charles, John C.

Abandoning the Black Hero : Sympathy and Privacy in the Postwar African American White-Life Novel. - New Brunswick, NJ : Rutgers University Press, (c)2012. - 1 online resource (278 pages)

Includes bibliographies and index.

Title Page; Copyright Page; Dedication; Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction; Chapter 1. "I'm Regarded Fatally as a Negro Writer":Mid-Twentieth-Century Racial Discourseand the Rise of the White-Life Novel; Chapter 2. The Home and the Street: Ann Petry's"Rage for Privacy"; Chapter 3. White Masks and Queer Prisons; Chapter 4. Sympathy for the Master: Reforming Southern White Manhood in Frank Yerby'sThe Foxes of Harrow; Chapter 5. Talk about the South: Unspeakable Things Unspoken in Zora Neale Hurston'sSeraph on the Suwanee. Chapter 6. The Unfinished Project of Western Modernity:Savage Holiday, Moral Slaves, and the Problemof Freedom in Cold War AmericaConclusion; Notes; Works Cited; Index; About the Author.

Abandoning the Black Hero examines the motivations that led certain African American authors in mid-twentieth century to shift from writing protest novels about racial injustice to novels focusing primarily, if not exclusively on whites, or white-life novels. These fascinating works have been understudied despite having been written by such defining figures as Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Ann Petry, and Chester Himes, as well as lesser known but formerly best-selling auth.



9780813554341


American fiction--African American authors--History and criticism.
American fiction--History and criticism.--20th century
African Americans--Intellectual life--20th century.
White people in literature.
Race in literature.


Electronic Books.

PS374 / .A236 2012