Going to Meet the Man: Stories

· Sold by Vintage
11 reviews
Ebook
256
Pages
Tools
Eligible

About this ebook

A major collection of short fiction—including the story "Sonny's Blues"—by one of America’s most important writers, exploring the wounds racism leaves in both its victims and its perpetrators.

In this modern classic, "there's no way not to suffer. But you try all kinds of ways to keep from drowning in it." The men and women in these eight short fictions grasp this truth on an elemental level, and their stories detail the ingenious and often desperate ways in which they try to keep their head above water.

It may be the heroin that a down-and-out jazz pianist uses to face the terror of pouring his life into an inanimate instrument. It may be the brittle piety of a father who can never forgive his son for his illegitimacy. Or it may be the screen of bigotry that a redneck deputy has raised to blunt the awful childhood memory of the day his parents took him to watch a black man being murdered by a gleeful mob.

By turns haunting, heartbreaking, and horrifying, Going to Meet the Man is a major work by one of the most important writers of the twentieth century.

Including:
The Rockpile
The Outing
The Man Child
Previous Condition
Sonny's Blues
This Morning, This Evening, So Soon
Come Out the Wilderness
Going to Meet the Man
A major collection of short fiction—including the story "Sonny's Blues"—by one of America’s most important writers, exploring the wounds racism leaves in both its victims and its perpetrators. In this modern classic, "there's no way not to suffer. But you try all kinds of ways to keep from drown...

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Ratings and reviews

11 reviews
David E. Tureau
August 9, 2026
I can't find a book to help my problems and I'm searching with simple titles because I thought I'd get a better description of a book. I could just write my own or maybe my life doesn't fit the common issues these authors can imagine in my life
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JOhiyoM
June 10, 2016
Relevant this day. A time when the historical, institutionalized racism of this nation is trivialized by certain powers that B thru manipulation of uninformed social media enthusiasts jumping 2 conclusions B4 all the facts r out on the latest news story- mere distraction. Silly lil ideological debates & nothing has changed. Kid falls in with gorilla @ zoo. R parents black or white? We find out they weren't white. It becomes THE racial debate the USA has needed 2 have with itself since 1964. Meanwhile...
2 people found this review helpful
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Aidan Richter
February 22, 2017
Great Book, Did a Project on It for School!
4 people found this review helpful
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About the author

James Baldwin (1924–1987) was a novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, appeared in 1953 to excellent reviews, and his essay collections Notes of a Native Son and The Fire Next Time were bestsellers that made him an influential figure in the growing civil rights movement. Baldwin spent much of his life in France, where he moved to escape the racism and homophobia of the United States. He died in France in 1987, a year after being made a Commander of the French Legion of Honor.
James Baldwin (1924–1987) was a novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, appeared in 1953 to excellent reviews, and his essay collections Notes of a Native Son and The Fire Next Time were bestsellers that made him an influential figure ...

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