Blind Man with a Pistol

Harlem Cycle #8

by Chester Himes

At once grotesquely comic and unflinchingly violent, Blind Man With a Pistol is the final entry in Chester Himes's trailblazing Harlem Detectives series.
 
New York is sweltering in the summer heat, and Harlem is close to the boiling point. To Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, at times it seems as if the whole world has gone mad. Trying, as always, to keep some kind of peace—their legendary nickel-plated Colts very much in evidence—Coffin Ed and Grave Digger find themselves pursuing two completely different cases through a maze of knifings, beatings, and riots that threaten to tear Harlem apart.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Crime, Noir, The United States Of America, 20th Century, African American

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Chester Bomar Himes began writing in the early 1930s while serving a prison sentence for armed robbery. From there, he produced short stories for periodicals such as Esquire and Abbott's Monthly. When released, he focussed on semi-autobiographical protest novels.

In 1953, Himes emigrated to France, where he was approached by Marcel Duhamel of Gallimard to write a detective series for Série Noire, which had published works from the likes of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Jim Thompson. Himes would be the first black author included in the series. The resulting Harlem Cycle gained him celebrity when he won France's Grand Prix de Littérature Policière for La Reine des Pommes (now known in English as A Rage in Harlem) in 1958. Three of these novels have been adapted into movies: Cotton Comes to Harlem, directed by Ossie Davis in 1970; Come Back, Charleston Blue (based on The Heat's On) in 1972; and A Rage in Harlem, starring Gregory Hines and Danny Glover in 1991.

In 1968, Himes moved to Spain where he made his home until his death.

Reviews

[Dan Schwent · Rating 3 out of 5]

When a pantsless man with his throat cut dies at the feet of Coffin Ed and Grave Digger Jones, it's up to the toughest detectives in Harlem to find out who killed him. But can they solve the murder and figure out who's causing the riots that threaten to destroy Harlem?

Hot Day, Hot Night, aka Blind Man with a Pistol, is more than a pulp detective story. Like Himes's other books featuring Coffin Ed and Grave Digger Jones, it's a commentary about racism and racial equality. You can definitely tell by reading it that Himes wasn't planning on writing another Harlem Detective book. This one is bleak, chaotic, and even the baddest detectives in Harlem seem to be getting tired.

Chaotic would be the best way to describe the narrative. There are riots, murders, and all kinds of crazy shit. Coffin Ed and Grave Digger were just as in the dark as I was for most of it. The ending pretty much sums up the point Himes was trying to get across in the whole book: violence doesn't make sense.

It's a shame Chester Himes isn't very well known. He was definitely ahead of his time.

[Roy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel by Chester Himes is basically an example of existentialism old school Harlem style. It may not be for everybody, certainly not for readers who want a clear cut answer at the end of their whodunnits, but I'm pretty sure Kafka and Camus would have approved of Blind Man with a Pistol. Who killed the pants-less man, why did that woman kill that guy, is any one person or organization behind the marches that quickly escalate into riots and looting? Questions such as these are asked, most are not answered definitively. Why not? Because Himes isn't really interested in providing a mystery to be solved. His goal is to make the point that most violence is like a blind man with a pistol, without aim, without strategy, without a point. Tragedies happen because people keep butting into each other. It's the way of the world. I especially liked the final chapter which stands apart from the rest of the book while also representing all that came before it. Personally I would have liked a little more cohesion to the plot, at least one case solved by deductive reasoning. That's a main reason one chooses to read a detective novel after all. But Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones are no ordinary detectives, or at least their situation as representatives of the law but also outsiders to it is unique for a crime novel. One could argue that it's actually a sociological and/or philosophical book masquerading as a cops and robbers tale. Coffin and Grave Digger walk the line between white and black worlds and sometimes you may wonder where their loyalty will lie, but the matter is never truly in doubt. They are honest men whose goal is to do their job as permitted to do it, and to keep alive. Sometimes this allows them to catch a few bad guys. Other times the bad guys have too much pull to be troubled much by the lowest guys in the legal totem pole. No matter. There's always another case to work on, another corpse on their beat, another reason why someone has to die, but never a particularly reasonable one. A blind man with a pistol doesn't really aim, he just points and fires and whoever gets hit goes down.

[Ben Loory · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most furious books I've ever read in my life. Somewhere between Celine and Ralph Bakshi

[Liam · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5*

[Lemar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chester Himes is a must read. You can feel the truth like it was passed to you. “They calls it Urban Renewal, I calls it poor folks removal”, spoken by a lady, Harlem resident, watching the demolition of her building, a slum, but her building.
The crime fiction books set in Harlem were never exploited by Mr. Himes, not played for profit by turning Harlem life into a caricature of itself. In this last of the series, he is intent on confronting the reader with a view of the effects of poverty and racism in New York, 1969. Black Power, hustling, community organizing, bookstores serving as a center of the dissemination of knowledge, are all part of the mix here in 1969.
Mr. Himes was an openly, unapologetically gay black man. One could string together a long line of adjectives in attempt to describe him but, as this book especially as well as his nonfiction autobiographical works show, he was above all, a writer.
Our heroes, Coffin Ed and Grace Digger, are two black cops, conflicted, committed to their job even as injustice swirls violently around them. They are tough as nails but not on the take. In the American tradition, these cops define their jobs their way, often it’s protecting citizens from white cops, they are scary as hell but they are honest, true to themselves. In their final appearance they are confused too, wondering what the future will bring. “Something’s happening but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?” sand Dylan around this time.
“What the hell’s got into these people all of a sudden?” he heard Coffin Ed asking. “It ain’t been sudden”, said Lomax, “They been feeling a long time. Like all the rest of us. Now they making their statement.” “Statement? Statement saying what?” “Each of them got a different statement.”

Mr. Himes wraps his series with a wise take. ‘Each of them got a different statement.’ People are diverse, the time of foisting the idea of seeing every person through the lens of their race is no longer tenable, this message from 1969 affirms. It never was. This novel feels chaotic, is chaotic, for a reason. The center can not hold. It’s been a long time coming. The work isn’t over, the current election in 2020 shows identity politics still being dragged out.
One important seemingly minor character is described this way as he organizes a march inclusive of all so called races and all so called sexual identities,
“He knew all people needed was a chance to love one another.”
Amen to that.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is where, with his 8th book, Chester Himes ended his Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson series (there is the unfinished Plan B after this). The chaos that is in all the books takes over, and we get a blistering, almost absurdist novel where violence is rampant and none of the major crimes, including murders, gets solved. The final images are those of total communication breakdown and, quite literally, a blind man with a pistol firing his gun in the enclosed space of a crowded NYC subway. This time even Coffin Ed and Gravedigger understand nothing and can accomplish virtually nothing. Published in 1969, this is a remarkably relevant book and utterly uncompromising. It is also, in typical Himes fashion, very funny at times, but when you laugh reading these pages, you have a feeling of thorns getting caught in your throat.

[Kurt Reichenbaugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally entitled Blind Man With a Pistol, this is the last novel featuring Harlem detectives Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones. It's been some time since reading a Chester Himes novel and I really enjoyed diving back into the bizarre, grotesque chaos of his Harlem setting. There really isn't a way to describe the plot of this novel that would entice the uninitiated. No sense in looking for a mystery or a procedural to latch on to. Instead expect something of a dark carnival ride with crude humor and anger throughout. This one takes place in 1969, approximated 12 years after the first novel featuring our detectives. They're even more violent, cynical, weary and tired. Here they get to deal with prophets, hookers, homosexuals, teenagers, jazz clubs, hipsters and space-age hippies. Sounds like a fun evening.

[Cphe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed it, particularly the setting of Harlem and the the two main characters but did find it a bit disjointed in parts.

[Kayla · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly didn't follow most of the book. There was a lot of skipping around and too many different point of views. The crimes weren't solved...which I'm sure has some significance but at this point I'm not sure what. I guess the author just hated the way things were at the time and was trying to show Harlem for what it was. Interesting book though and I'll probably like it more when I re-read it not expecting the crimes to be solved and focusing more on why it's written the way it is.

[David Duran · Rating 2 out of 5]

Supongo que este libro gustará a algunos lectores, pero no a mi.

Los personajes no están desarrollados, hay demasiadas historias abiertas, demasiados puntos de vistas, demasiados vacíos... Es de suponer que el autor lo hizo con algún propósito, pero aún teniéndole, no he disfrutado del estilo literario del libro.

[Tabuyo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Me gusta la novela negra pero con esta historia no he podido, no entré en la trama ni me gustaron los personajes.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the only Himes I've read and I'm guessing it probably isn't the best place to start -- see Ben Winch's great review of another Himes book for a summary of Himes' work -- but I've been meaning to put up this quote from the book because it is so damn good:

While Coffin Ed was transmitting the essential facts over the radio-phone, colored people in various stages of undress began emerging from the black dark tenements alongside. Black women in terrycloth robes with their faces greased and their straightened hair done in small tight plaits like Topsy; brownskinned women with voluptuous breasts and broad buttocks wrapped in bright-coloured nylon, half-straight hair hanging loosely about their cushion-mouthed sleepy-eyed faces; high yellows in their silks and curlers. And the men, old, young, nappy-headed, conk-haired, eyes full of sleep, faces lined where witches were riding them, mouths slack, wrapped in sheets, blankets, raincoats, or just soiled and wrinkled pajamas. Collecting in the street to see the dead man. Looking inexpressibly stupid in their morbid curiosity. A dead man was always good to see. It was reassuring to see somebody else dead. Generally the dead men were also colored. A white dead man was really something. Worth getting up any time of the night. But no one asked who cut him. Nor why. Who was going to ask who cut a white man's throat in Harlem? Or why? Just look at him, baby. And feel good it ain't you. Look at that white mother-raper with his throat cut. You know what he was after...

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh, how sad that this series is over, but the ending of this book is completely satisfying and addresses the issue of racism that Himes has been confronting thoughout these books. There are good & bad people in any ethnicity and Himes makes sure the reader knows it; some of the characters know this too, but not all, which is where the drama begins.

There is a race riot going on in Harlem. There are a variety of different groups mentioned as being involved & not two of these groups can get along with each other. Again, it is up to Coffin Ed Johnson & Grave Digger Jones to contain the riots and find out what started it all. The reader needn't look further than the title of this book to solve the mystery. How fitting it all is...how true.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Himes has somewhat faded from view for modern mystery readers, but his Harlem Cycle is due a renaissance - his noir take on the African American experience presages Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins but has its own unique sensibility. His lead detectives are grudgingly aware of their set-down place in their world, and their cynical humor is both acerbic and heart-breaking.

[Mack · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read that Gravedigger and Coffin Ed had lived past their time, into the days of the Civil Rights struggles of the ‘60s, but author Chester Himes could have written his characters into those days. He just chose not to, and this book becomes a parable of those days more than a crime story.

[Daniel Polansky]

As a summer Harlem explodes with violence, the powers that be send Gravedigger and Coffin Ed to figure out who’s causing it, only to discover that the culprit is (wait for it) racism! One gets the sense that Himes was basically sick of writing this series by this point; this is less a mystery novel than it is an exploration of a New York about to explode. There’s lots of murders, but none of them get solved; there’s lots of evil, but none really gets punished. I was always pretty much reading Himes for his depiction of scene and his insight into the brutal nature of racial politics in America, and those are all still on evidence here, but if you were hoping for you’re regular genre pay off you’ll be disappointed. I liked it though, keep. If it weren’t borrowed.

[Gibson · Rating 4 out of 5]

L'eterna lotta tra bianchi e negri agli angoli della strada

Avrei dovuto prestare più attenzione nel leggere questo romanzo, ora lo so.
Qualcosa mi è sfuggito nel marasma carnale che è la scrittura di Himes, già apprezzata altrove, brulicante di personaggi che trasudano negritudine in eterna lotta: tra di loro, con i bianchi, con i finocchi e con lesbiche, in una Harlem povera che sembra uscire da un fumetto psichedelico senza né capo né coda descritta come solo lui sa fare, in maniera esplosiva.

Scoppia una rivolta urbana e succede di tutto. Invece di spiegare le dinamiche Himes incastra le scene a singhiozzo, seppur realistiche le rende ostiche creando una apparente sensazione di disomogeneità, spiazzando il lettore.
Insomma, non si capisce un cazzo.

Però, però non è incapacità dell'autore, che la materia di cui scrive la ribalta come vuole, il tutto è voluto - Himes ha sempre in mente il Faulkner di Santuario, la filosofia del Sono i personaggi che fanno le descrizioni. Tu, stanne fuori. -, e così imbastisce una vicenda che non ha nemmeno una fine. Esattamente come la lotta tra bianchi e negri.

Piaccia o non piaccia, i polizieschi di Himes sono come lui: unici.

3½

[Toño Piñeiro · Rating 3 out of 5]

♠️4 de diamantes ♠️

Una novela "de policías" (abajo explico de qué hablo) que quizá no sea para todo mundo. Narra las andanzas de los dos policías (negros) más rudos de Harlem Coffin Ed y Grave Digger Jones quienes tienen como encargo resolver el asesinato de un hombre blanco en el barrio.

Catalogar a esta novela como "policiaca" o de "detectives" me parece un error por el simple hecho de que los personajes tienen muy poquito de tales: no son particularmente agudos, no descifran el caso, nunca encuentran a su hombre. Caminan en círculos dentro de estructuras que no los consideran dignos por el simple hecho de ser negros. La policía es el monolito que nunca podrán derribar: protegen la ley, pero esa ley está reservada para unos cuantos, unos cuantos blancos esto es.

Como ejercicio alegórico el libro me parece mucho más acertado: con pinceladas, Himes construye un Harlem que parce condenado y que muere lentamente: la prostitución, el narcotráfico, la explotación, los asesinatos parecen tan comunes que son invisibles; un ghetto en toda regla que parece creado para cercar a los negros y que ellos mismos no deseen salir; en este caldo de cultivo las opciones parecen básicamente dos: la aceptación de las condiciones o la radicalización racial. Si habrá un cambio drástico será a través del Black Power, no del Flower Power.

Así, este no es un libro estrictamente de detectives, aunque lo parezca en la superficie. Tiene un par de ellos e investigan un caso, pero hasta allí. Uno se lee Un ciego con una pistola para observar la realidad negra desde los ojos de un negro, con un poquito de poder. Nada más, nada menos.

Lo recomiendo: no como novela negra, si como novela Negra.

Y ya está.

[Darryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Harlem, a summer in the late 1960s: temperatures are sweltering, and its residents are becoming more agitated and tense, fueled by a series of protests and violent murders that threaten to tear the neighborhood's fragile structure apart. Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, two of NYC's finest detectives, are called upon to solve these crimes and help restore order. The two encounter a variety of odd and unsavory characters, including a preacher who claims to be 100 years old and the father of innumerable children by the "nuns" who share a squalid flat with him, and an inscrutable gay counterman at a restaurant on 125th Street who knows far more than he will admit to. Despite their efforts, the tension and violence progressively escalate, as former allies become hated enemies.

The title of this book refers to Himes' comment about unorganized violence in the black community, fueled by community leaders that urged black men to act, often recklessly. I found this novel to be disjointed and difficult to follow, which made for an unpleasant read. I understand that his earlier novels are better than this one, particularly If He Hollers Let Him Go: A Novel, so I'll try Himes again in the near future.

[Hex75 · Rating 5 out of 5]

un libro grondante rabbia ad ogni pagina: è questa l'immagine più forte che resta alla fine della lettura. ma non si deve limitare un libro così a questa immagine, nonostante sia la più forte ad emergere dalle pagine, perchè qui ci sono immagini incredibili, pagine uniche che fanno elevare himes tra i grandissimi della letteratura americana (e non semplicemente afroamericana), come un chandler più incazzato in una harlem mitologica. validissimo pure per chi dei noir non ne vole sapere nulla, perchè qui il noir fa da sfondo a personaggi e ambientazioni irreperibili in qualsiasi altro autore, oltre a riflessioni sul razzismo in america che colpiscono come un pugno nello stomaco.

[Ffiamma · Rating 3 out of 5]

più che un romanzo, mancando completamente una trama di senso compiuto, un insieme di bozzetti e storie sulla harlem di allora. alcuni divertentissimi nella loro volgarità, altri meno riusciti- ma tutti, credo, estremamente realistici. mi ha molto ricordato i blaxploitation movies degli anni '70. sconsigliato se si cerca una storia noir, consigliato se si è curiosi del periodo e si vuole un po' di colore e sociologia.

[Deanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Muddled crime novel, which seems more focused on the violence than actually solving the murders. Some of the murders seem to be included for the sake of more violence, with no real motive being explained. This includes the Blind Man with the pistol.

[Saúl Girón · Rating 2 out of 5]

El problema no fue el género, sino q quizas simplemente la novela nunca me atrapó (aunque he de admitir q este género no es mi fuerte).
La trama y la narrativa las encontré un tanto desordenadas y caóticas!

[Eric Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wacky, fun, hard-boiled Himes.

[wally · Rating 3 out of 5]

1st from himes for me...

blind man with a pistol, chester himes, 1969...this version paperback, a 1989 printing...first vintage books edition, december 1989
191 story-pages long.

a preface
"a friend of mine, phil lomax, told me this story about a blind man with a pistol...and thought further that all unorganized violence is like a blind man with a pistol."
--chester himes

and this reader thought that all violence w/a pistol is organized, may it do ya fine, the deuce coupe de diablo. cue the fat lady.

there is a foreword
"motherfucking right, it's confusing; it's a gas, baby, you dig."
--a harlem intellectual

there's two quotes on a white page:
i know what you want.
how you know that?
just lookin at you.
cause i'm white?
tain't that. i got the eye.
you think i'm looking for a girl.
chops is your dish.
not pork.
naw.
not overdone.
naw. just right.


and:
"blink once, you're robbed," coffin ed advised the white man slumming in harlem.
"blink twice, you're dead," grave digger added dryly.

story begins:
on 119th street there had been a sign for years in the front window of an old dilapidated three-storey brick house, announcing: funerals performed.

okee dokee then, as the good doctor said, (the loud-ass nigger, 1978)...onward & upward

time place scene setting
*harlem: various locations around harlem
*119th street, an old dilapidated 3-storey brick house
*july 15th, getaway day, nat turner day
*united tabacco, n.w. corner of 125th st & 7th ave
*the theresa building...where the sissies gather at a lunch counter
*125th/ 7th ave...the mecca of harlem
*chicken auto insurance ...2nd ave/125th st
*the five spot...a kind of night club. on st. mark's place
*texas hotel near 125th st station
*buttercup's chicken shack
*123rd street...where the white man w/no pants dies
*paradise inn, 135th & 7th ave
*135th st precinct
*a large middle-class housing development
*kitchenette apartments
*the temple of black jesus, 116th street
*silver-moon greasy spoon
*acey-duecy's poolroom
*acme realty, lower broadway knickerbocker bldg
*amsterdam apartments 126th between madison and 5th
*alicante hotel, next to the five spot, next to the arabian nights baths
*cooper square precinct station on lafayette
*the dagger club called "bulldagger's" club
*black art bookstore on 7th
*blind man dice game at fo-fo's "sporting gentlemans club"

characters
*nuns
*2 cops. both white
*a fat black man...bubber, the cretin
*a black nun, buttercup
*other black nuns
*50 children...a horde of naked black children
*a very old man dressed in a spotted long-sleeved white gown, the reverend sam...has eleven wives, is a mormon, looking for the 12th wife, fertile, him and the wives...he is around a hundred years old give or take
*sissies at the theresa building
*the black driver...of a cab/taxi
*a heavyset serious man...who leaves the sissies lunch counter at the theresa bldg
*reinforcements from the harlem precinct station
*sergeant of detectives
*twelve cops
*3 female bodies in the basement/dirt cellar, 119th street
*the waiter
*seymour rosenblom, of the auto insurance place
*marcus mackenzie, a serious man, 2 years u.s. army/germany, a preacher or sorts...
*48 of them...marchers for marcus, black & white
*pansies and protitutes...ordinary bar drinkers...strangers in the area, johns and squares, muggers and sneak theieves
*the black youth driving the old dodge car
*a swede woman, birgit
*a number of sycophants
*buttercup
*a fattish erudite white man
*gravedigger jones, negro detective
*coffin ed johnson, negro detective...one of the distinguishing features of coffin ed is the grafted skin on his face from a burn by acid that some bad guy threw at him. that, and he has a daughter called "sugartit" that is also the name of another minor character in the story
*a black man in a black ensemble w/a red fez...who may or may not be jesus baby...focus again or the lack thereof...blindness and what have you
*a bareheaded white man...no pants...who turns out later in the story to have the name richard henderson, a producer of new plays in off-broadway theaters...was looking for some homosexual action when he was murdered by knife
*lt anderson...jones' and johnson's immediate boss, next in chain, line
*h. exodus clay, an undertaker brother
*doctor mubuta
*dick, anny, viola, sugartit, van raff
*johnson x
*a crowd of harlem citizens
*a high-yellow chick w/bright red hair
*tall slim black man w/smooth carved features and etched hair
*the comely young brownskinned miss
*one conk-haired joker in a long-sleeved red silk shirt
*young women collecting
*a buxom stern-faced, gray-haired matron clad in a black dress uniform, sister z
*police
*few white motorists
*two dangerous-looking black men
*a portly gray-haired black male
*two slender clerics
**doctor moore
*a chauffeur "b"...no, "c" as "b" is dead
*assistant medical examiner, sgt from homocide, assistant district attorney, photographer, joe--detective 1st grade, ambulance drivers, vacant-faced patrol-car cops & 15 white officers & 4 colored patrol-car cops
*ted, another named cop
*sister berry, a buxom light-complexioned woman
*a pajama-clad brother
*annie, a white chick
*mildred, the little white tramp
*dick, annie's husband...mister sam's son
*syndicate boss
*dusty fletcher...from an interlude
*a chickenshit pimp & a two-dollar whore
*a whiskey happy joker, a cook, an old man stealing bbq from another old man cooking/grilling it, half-naked black people
*the prophet ham...general ham
*reverend duke...made a colonel by the prophet ham who is a general
*a buxom white woman
*sgt ryan, ted the photographer, fingerprint crew, 4 detectives
*mr and mrs tola onan ramsey...bee is the missus
*mr and mrs socrates x hoover...poon is the missus
*mr and mrs booker t washington....the three couples are witness who saw nothing heard nothing so on so forth
*the super, a west indian, lucas covey
*mr shelton, bldg manager for acme realty
*lester chambers, rent collector for acme...both white
*ted/stan, two cops
*john babson, who may or may not be jesus baby, the killer of the white man w/no pants...and he is also a cook/counterman at the sissy lunch counter, a "prissy brown-skinned counterman w/shiny conked curls"
*captain brice
*deke o/malley, who escaped from the jail, a kind of aside to the telling
*three distinct groups of marchers
*a bare-legged black youth, a bare-legged white youth, a very handsome young man of sepia color, thinly clad black girls, a devout christian drunk, weedheads in front of the pool hall north of 126th street
*miss barbara tynes, coffin ed's wife's cousin
*a big burly brother clad in blue denim overalls
*slick
*a fat, greasy-faced man
*martha schlame, singing israeli folk songs
*dom polsky nardowy...?
*spokesman from 125th st offices of naacp (negroes are all colored people) and core
*roy wilkins & whitney young...two names used by coffin ed and ?
*angry-faced musicians
*cat, one of the lesbos...mrs catherine little, husband is in business
*jonas "fats" little, her husband...and there is a short vignette about his business, his success, so on so forth
*dennis holman, chauffeur for white man
*john babson's wife, irene...separated...a child 3-yr-old
*patricia davis...one of the two lesbos...but ten pages later, her name is patricia bowles. continuity error? how else does one read it?
*blind man with a gun
*abie the jew
*fat sam...on the subway w/the blind man, others
*mr grace...at the bookstore
*michael x, minister of the harlem mosque
*mary-louise, mr grace's wife

update, finished, 21 sep 13, saturday afternoon, 5:44 p.m. e.s.t.
finished...3-stars i liked it...no more no less. himes moves a pile of people around the pages...this is harlem after all. w/the story read i'm thinking, okay, parable...1969...the times. nothing's changed. good writing, descriptive and all that...not as hard to follow as some have alleged but since part of the focus seems to be a lack of focus...or a distorted lens (sight)...i can see why some think that--it is hard to follow. it's not.

heh!
her breasts wriggled in gilt fishnet like baby seals trying to nurse...this act put on by a lesbo trying to distract the crowd...focus again...so as her partner could slash and burn.

a note on the narration
3rd person multiple this...but it never gets too deeply into any character's p.o.v. this is mostly action, dialogue...there are no tortured sessions of stream-of-consciousness. himes is concerned mainly w/telling a story and if something troubles a character, they either riot, kill someone, slap someone, beat the shit out of someone, or run.

himes also has sections peppered throughout called interlude...short pieces like an aside in a play. one is a kind of americana/folklore about dandruff. dandruff is the result of popcorn in the brain all fired up and leaking out.

yeah, so riots
one reason provided by one character, coffin ed or gravedigger, is that a new generation believes the lies the proverbial white man tells them...expects truth or something...whereas the older generation knew the lie for what it is, a lie, an accepted it thus. the new can't accept a lie, so riots.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. An entertaining, humorous, original, engaging crime fiction novel set in Harlem, New York in the 1960s. Two black detectives, Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones are trying to solve a string of stabbing, beatings and riots. The author describes black living conditions and black attitudes to law. White cops are viewed as a joke, being mainly ineffectual in dealing with black crimes against blacks. The two black detectives find themselves fairly impotent in a racist, white ruled world.

This book was first published in 1969.

[Colin Mitchell · Rating 2 out of 5]

The penultimate book in the Harlem series was, I found, a disjointed series of happenings on the streets of Harlem. Increasing racial tension brought on riots and murder for little apparent reason all culmination in the blind man with a pistol. Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones (Great names) seemingly stagger along becoming increasingly disillusioned with their lot and not achieving much.

A strong social message but not much of a book and the jargon was hard going.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

[Meri · Rating 1 out of 5]

estaba deseando terminar este libro para contar lo que me ha parecido: un completo desorden. una trama totalmente dispersa, demasiados personajes poco importantes, protagonistas, a mi parecer, estúpidos y llena de comentarios denigrantes.

se dice que es un clásico de la novela negra, escalofriante, brutal y todos los adjetivos que te puedas imaginar. pues, para mí, una lectura para olvidar.

no la recomiendo para nada, pero a lo mejor es problema mío y no del libro.
lo único que me ha gustado es que los capítulos son cortos.

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 3 out of 5]

I shd really create a bkshelf called "crime fiction" & get rid of "mysteries" since most of what I call "mysteries" here are more appropriately called the former. That's the case here. Himes is yet-another author I've known about for a long time w/o ever having gotten around to reading until now. This bk is copyrighted 1969 & reading it falls conveniently on the heels of my listening to a record of an Eldridge Cleaver speech at Syracuse Univ in 1968. Why convenient? B/c Cleaver was a black radical in his prime in 1968 & Himes' bk has as its main background black social unrest & rioting around the same time.

The foreword:

""Motherfucking right, it's confusing; it's a gas, baby, you dig."

A Harlem intellectual"

Cleaver's record is called "Dig" & in his speech he explains the use of "motherfucker". &, yes, I'd call Cleaver an intellectual too.

ANYWAY, I'd almost rank Himes w/ Hammett & Chandler as a crime fiction writer but I want to read more by him before I go that far. This was a good start for me. Himes' preface explains the title of the bk:

"A friend of mine, Phil Lomax, told me this story about a blind man with a pistol shooting at a man who slapped him on a subway train and killing an innocent bystander [..:] and thought further that all unorganized violence is like a blind man with a pistol."

Himes' bk is a collection of portraits in Harlem, NYC. It's tied together by the 2 main characters, 2 black police detectives, trying to solve crimes that the reader is privy to the solution of but that the detectives are prevented from learning much about. & Himes uses this context as a way of introducing social commentary - esp from the detectives mouths when they talk w/ their lieutenant:

""All right, all right! I take it you know who started the riot."

"Some folks call him by one name, some another," Coffin Ed said.

"Some call him lack of respect for law and order, some lack of opportunity, some the teachings of the Bible, some the sins of their fathers," Grave Digger expounded. "Some call him ignorance, some poverty, some rebellion. Me and Ed look at him with compassion. We're victims."

"Victims of what?" Anderson asked foolishly.

"Victims of your skin," Coffin Ed shouted brutally"

At any rate, Himes is hardly an oversimplifier - he casts a cynical eye on almost all he sees - but I'd have to say it's mostly a fair one.