1979 novel by James Baldwin
Just Above My Head is James Baldwin's sixth and last novel, first published in 1979. He wrote it in his house in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France.
Plot introduction.
The novel tells the life story of a group of friends, from preaching in Harlem, through to experiencing "incest, war, poverty, the civil-rights struggle, as well as wealth and love and fame—in Korea, Africa, Birmingham, New York City, Paris."
Major themes.
The novel enmeshes racism with homophobia, with an "explicit association of Birmingham and Sodom".
Literary significance and criticism.
It has been suggested that the novel links the trope of the internalisation of history to what W. E. B. Du Bois defined as the African American's "longing to attain self-conscious manhood".
It has been suggested that Crunch subscribes to the idea propounded by Auguste Ambroise Tardieu and Cesare Lombroso that homosexuality was inscribed upon a homosexual's flesh, when he wonders, "if his change was visible".
References.
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