Today I want to talk about the literary canon, the texts that have been judged to be worthwhile and enduring and therefore deserving of special status in our culture.
I’m also going to talk about the writing of John A. Williams. I’m going to guess that most of you don’t know who that is, and the reason you don’t is because of the biases that influence what books get canonized.
No one person or group is in charge of the canon, nor is the canon forever fixed. Books and authors are added to the canon over time, while others fade away. Works can remain in the canon even if they are not as widely read as others. Both Shakespeare and John Milton are permanent members of the canon, but you won’t find the vast majority of high schools in America requiring students to read “Paradise Lost.”
While no one person or group is in charge of the canon, the culture in which the canon exists undeniably shapes what works are even considered for canonization. The canon is heavily male because women were excluded for hundreds of years.
There also was a period, perhaps one we are still in, in which non-white authors were admitted to the canon on a quota basis, one at a time. This is why I was not exposed to the work of John A. Williams until recently, quite literally, stumbling across his novel “The Man Who Cried I Am” in a London bookstore.
“The Man Who Cried I Am” was Williams’ fourth novel, first published in 1967. Among other things, it is a roman à clef about the challenge of Black writers gaining access to the attention and acclaim that would make it possible for their books to be acknowledged as works that should continue to be read as part of the canon.
The novel centers on the character of Max Reddick a writer who once held high promise, but as he confronts his impending death from colon cancer, recognizes that he is likely to be forgotten, despite having once been seen as a writer of talent and accomplishment. Reddick is based on Chester Himes, a writer who was a friend of Williams, though at times you can see the arc of Williams’ own story. Over the course of his career, Williams published a couple dozen novels and books of nonfiction, including a highly controversial early biography of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1970, “The King God Didn’t Save: Reflections on the Life and Death of Martin Luther King, Jr.”
Williams’ books were odd, in a good way if you ask me, which perhaps left audiences unsure of what to make of him. “The Man Who Cried I Am” evolves into a kind of conspiracy novel as Max gets tangled up in an apparent government scheme designed to prevent African countries from developing economically.
But what is great about Williams, and is similar to other underrecognized Black writers I’ve been exploring lately, such as Charles Stevenson Wright (“The Wig”) and William Melvin Kelley (“A Different Drummer”), is the incredible specificity of his vision. Yes, these are writers who explored what it was like to be Black in America, but reading them together demonstrates the necessity of a variety of viewpoints on what that means.
There is no one story to cover all people. Unfortunately, the standard canon obscures this. We are allowed Richard Wright, and then James Baldwin, and then Toni Morrison, and now Colson Whitehead.
Writers like Charles Stevenson Wright, William Melvin Kelley and John A. Williams aren’t gone entirely, but they have been unjustly obscured. We should see them brought back into the light.
John Warner is the author of “Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.”
Book recommendations from the Biblioracle
John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.
1. “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood
2. “James” by Percival Everett
3. “Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston
4. “The Sellout” by Paul Beatty
5. “The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir” by Griffin Dunne
— Sean G., Highwood
For Sean, I’m recommending the compelling adventure novel, “Washington Black” by Esi Edugyan.
1. “The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry” by Gabrielle Zevin
2. “The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World” by A.J. Baime
3. “James” by Percival Everett
4. “The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder” by David Grann
5. “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store” by James McBride
— Gerald L., Deerfield
Normally I don’t recommend books this prominent or popular, but it’s so in Gerald’s wheelhouse, I have to, “The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz” by Erik Larson.
1. “Mrs. Quinn’s Rise to Fame” by Olivia Ford
2. “The God of the Woods” by Liz Moore
3. “The Many Lives of Mama Love” by Lara Love Hardin
4. “Last Summer on State Street” by Toya Wolfe
5. “James” by Percival Everett
— Kathleen B., LaGrange Park
I think Kathleen will be compelled by a novel with strong ties to Chicago, Rebecca Makkai’s “The Great Believers.”
Get a reading from the Biblioracle
Send a list of the last five books you’ve read and your hometown to biblioracle@gmail.com.