Blues for Mister Charlie
A Play
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group · Print & ebook · April 25, 1995
An award-winning play from one of America’s most brilliant writers about a murder in a small Southern town, loosely based on the 1955 killing of Emmett Till. • "A play with fires of fury in its belly, tears of anguish in its eyes, a roar of protest in its throat." —The New York Times James Baldwin turns a murder and its aftermath into an inquest in which even the most well-intentioned whites are implicated—and in which even a killer receives his share of compassion.
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- Who it’s for
- A murder’s aftermath becomes an unsparing inquest into racial violence, complicity, and compassion.
- Themes
- Racial injustice, Racial violence, Moral culpability and compassion
- Pacing
- Reflective
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Start with this bookAbout this book
An award-winning play from one of America’s most brilliant writers about a murder in a small Southern town, loosely based on the 1955 killing of Emmett Till. • "A play with fires of fury in its belly, tears of anguish in its eyes, a roar of protest in its throat." —The New York Times James Baldwin turns a murder and its aftermath into an inquest in which even the most well-intentioned whites are implicated—and in which even a killer receives his share of compassion.
Continue reading
In a small Southern town, a white man murders a black man, then throws his body in the weeds. With this act of violence, James Baldwin launches an unsparing and at times agonizing probe of the wounds of race. For where once a white storekeeper could have shot a "boy" like Richard Henry with impunity, times have changed. And centuries of brutality and fear, patronage and contempt, are about to erupt in a moment of truth as devastating as a shotgun blast.
Moral Reckoning
A murder’s aftermath becomes an unsparing inquest into racial violence, complicity, and compassion.
Come here for
- A furious examination of the wounds of race
- A moral inquiry that implicates even the well-intentioned
Expect
- An agonizing, serious reading experience
- A play that extends compassion even to a killer
Where it sits
| African American Plays | 81% |
|---|---|
| Political & Protest Drama | 47% |
| American Plays | 35% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- African American Plays
- Black Lit Crit
- 20th-Century Literary Criticism
- Authors
- James Baldwin
- Publisher
- Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- Published
- April 25, 1995
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Racial injustice · Racial violence · Moral culpability and compassion
- Reading lane
- African American Plays