I loved it even more than Notes of a Native Son—because Baldwin talks, with unusual directness and honesty, about the project of building up a self in the midst of horror. It's difficult to not regard America with disgust, but the one thing you can't do is escape it and the imprint it's formed on your psyche.

Baldwin found it driven home when he went to Paris and found himself to be inextricably American. And he was braver and stronger than I could be in fighting his way through with self-examination, instead of numbing oneself with depression and distraction. Of course, he notes that as a black man he HAD to be stronger through necessity, or else perish.

The way he grapples carefully, and critically, with his own emotions really makes me want to read his fiction now. And of course, there's something special going on with his prose that I can't fully deconstruct or understand. Truly a Writer.