If Beale Street Could Talk
by James Baldwin
Vintage Books
Movie Tie in Edition 2018
(Original story  1974)
Reviewed by Pat Davidson Reef
Pages 192 Price $14.95 (paperback)

This James Baldwin book is an edition that was released as a tie- in with the current film created in 2018 from a great classic story on black culture originally written in 1974.

Baldwin once said, ”Every black person born in America was born on Beale Street, whether Jackson, Mississippi or in Harlem, New York. Beale Street is our legacy.”
He meant the issues of racism and injustice are timeless and that is why this book and film are so important. Both these forms of art – literature and film- make us aware that injustice does prevail and we must be aware of it.

Works like “If Beale Street Could Talk” make the general public aware that prejudice still exists. This book makes the reader angry that these conditions for people of color still exist in America today, although the original book by James Baldwin was written 45 years ago.

The story involves two young lovers: a 19-year-old girl named Clementine, called Tish, and a 22- year-old sculptor named Alonzo, called Fonny. Tish and Fonny fall in love. Tish becomes pregnant. Fonny is accused of the rape of another woman and put into jail, even though Tish and Fonny were nowhere near the rape. The woman who was raped mistakenly identifies Fonny in a line up. Naturally the family is upset and the book reveals many desperate struggles to get the raped woman to change her mind.

This is a tragic story because Fonny is innocent. Police who are prejudiced and inmates in the prison who are lethal make Fonny’s life not worth living. A plea deal to survive keeps him in jail. Where is justice?  However, new life is coming with their baby’s arrival, but Tish and new baby will have to visit Fonny in jail. He still sculpts objects in wood anyway. Through creativity and a new baby, he may still find meaning in life, although he does not have freedom, yet he does have hope in the future.

The book mirrors the injustice today which people of color go through, as sharply as it did when James Baldwin wrote it in 1974. The current film in 2018 makes the subject of the book accessible to everyone. In reading this book, I could not help thinking of Trayvon Martin, Emmett Till, and the current New York Broadway play, ”To Kill a Mockingbird.”

These are examples of some of the injustices which still can be seen in contemporary times, where  innocent people in real life, as well as in art, have been faced with unfair treatment. The writing of James Baldwin is starkly realistic and his characters are believable.

The themes of poverty, injustice for people of color, the struggle for economic stability, human dignity, and love, are the key concepts in this book.

***

The Wife
by Meg Woltizer
Published by Charles Scribner 2018
Pages 219 Price $16.00 (paperback)

The beautiful writing style of Meg Wolitzer is even enhanced by the acting style of Glenn Close, who portrays “The Wife” perfectly in the  current film by that name. If you have seen the film, buy the book anyway. It is great! The film is fabulous but the way the author puts words together on the printed page is outstanding.

A husband and wife for many years fly together to Sweden so that  her husband can accept the Nobel Prize for Literature. On the plane the author describes the stewardesses as, “Women in uniform carried baskets up and down the aisles like a sexualized fleet of Red Riding Hoods.”

Joe and Joan Castleman  appear in the Helsinki airport as a team, an appearance which has been established over the years.  However, they really live separate lives. Joe is the star, a famous author, and Joan is the behind- the -scenes- wife, who gets him places on time, makes sure he takes his pills, and always picks up his clothes from the bedroom floor.

Once, however, she was his pupil, whose writing was very good, but which he felt could have been better with his help and encouragement. In their youth, they had a passionate affair as teacher and student. Then they got married. Children came along and Joan stopped writing her own work but she did type his work.  In fact, she was a good editor and she actually polished it for him. Yes, over the years she did more than polish his work. She wrote it. No one knew this, not even her children who were all grown up. Of course Joe had little affairs and flirtations with other women over the years, but as they got older Joan looked the other way. Hadn’t she been one of his “other” women at one time; the brightest of his students? Now, after 45 years together, she was thinking of getting a quiet divorce after he received the Nobel Prize. At 64, she wanted to start a new life.

They get to the hotel and he flirts with a pretty young photographer, and a few young waitresses and Joan decides to take a walk. An obnoxious gossip journalist sees her in the lobby and suggests they have a drink together. He implies he knows more about Joe than the public, and says he is writing a book. He wants private information about her side of the story. Joan brushes him off  after a drink, and continues to take a walk in the fresh air. She reveals nothing of her marriage to him, but he takes a few comments down and thinks he is going to get a scandalous story in the future.

Attending the Nobel Prize ceremonies and dinner later that night, Joe does say his wife is his muse, and the reason his writing is so good. She is not impressed with his false humility, because she knows she has been writing his books for years, but as a women would not have gotten the award during that time period.

After her husband’s award speech at the dinner, Joan gets up and leaves. In the hotel room, she tells him she is going to get a divorce. He has a heart attack. Like always, she rushes to help him and calls for medical aid. If you want to find out what happens, you will have to read the story, or see the film. Both book and film are excellent! I recommend both!

— Pat Davidson Reef is a graduate of Emerson College in Boston. She received her Masters Degree at the University of Southern Maine.She taught English and Art History at Catherine McAuley High for many years.She now teaches at the University of Southern Maine in Portland in the  Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, Classic Films. She recently wrote a children’s book,”Dahlov Ipcar Artist, and is now writing another children’s book “Bernard Langlais Revisited.”