From the Bookshelf of 2016 Authors of Color Challenge!…

If He Hollers Let Him Go

Chester Himes,

Hilton Als (Foreword by)

Why we're reading this: a powerful story of a black boy struggling in institutional racism
a very psychologically sensitive portra…more
[close] a powerful story of a black boy struggling in institutional racism
a very psychologically sensitive portrayal of the effects of racism

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Jan 07, 2016 Thanh Ha rated it it was amazing

4.5 stars

This book is so emotionally densed. It had me on my edge from start to finish. The night I finished the book, I had a dream of being trapped in a pitch-black house of hundreds of room where enemies came from every sides. That was how I felt reading this novel.

This isn’t the kind of book that will provide you with a wonderfully groundbreaking argument on institutional racism and oppression. Many times when I thought Himes was going to let his characters talk it out, the conversation wa 4.5 stars

This book is so emotionally densed. It had me on my edge from start to finish. The night I finished the book, I had a dream of being trapped in a pitch-black house of hundreds of room where enemies came from every sides. That was how I felt reading this novel.

This isn’t the kind of book that will provide you with a wonderfully groundbreaking argument on institutional racism and oppression. Many times when I thought Himes was going to let his characters talk it out, the conversation was broken off.

Himes, however, did an amazing job in profiling his characters and their struggle over control and power. The characterization was classics in a way.
• Bob, troubled, short-tempered, with an urge to preserve his manhood, dignity, and self-worth, by getting even with white folks, by not letting them rule over his life.
• Alice’s mom, fully internalized the belief that black people could only make it at white people’s mercy.
• Alice, light-coloured, sheltered, not entirely blinded from the faults of the system, but choosing not to talk about it & to live within the limitation of her race.
• Leighton, the benevolent white god, infantizing Bob as an unruly child
• Marge, where power took in the form of sexuality
• The black folks at the shipyards who felt the need to protect white women but not their black women
• And that comical Cleo whose definition of white tramp doesn’t extend to white male

The book has many powerful, sensual moments that can get under your skin.
• The scene of Bob and Alice at the restaurant was heartbreaking. I was really rooting for Alice to own it. She regained her control at some points, became beautiful & poised, then they got on her nerves, and she finally did break down in the end.
• Bob’s input to the phoney discussion among social workers in Alice’s room:
"... Well, sister, you’re asking for it, I thought. Aloud I said: ‘Well, now, I think we ought to kill the coloured residents and eat them. In that way we’ll not only solve the race problem but alleviate the meat shortage as well.’ ..."
• The psychological battle of control taking the form of lust (in which he lost, again) on the night Bob went to find Marge

He lost the final battle too. All that psychological losses ended up in a physical loss. He woke up naked, beaten, cornered, without help, with his penetrator being sung a hero. There can be no other way around it. He didn’t have a choice.
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Jan 22, 2024 Litsplaining marked it as to-read

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