Chester Himes | |
|---|---|
 Himes in 1946, photo byCarl Van Vechten | |
| Born | Chester Bomar Himes (1909-07-29)July 29, 1909 |
| Died | November 12, 1984(1984-11-12) (aged 75) Moraira, Spain |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Period | 1934–1980 |
| Genre | Hardboiledcrime fiction,detective fiction |
| Notable works | Harlem Detective series of novels |
| Notable awards | Grand Prix de Littérature Policière |
| Spouse | Jean Lucinda Johnson (m. 1937–div. 1978) Lesley Packard (m. 1978) |
Chester Bomar Himes (July 29, 1909 – November 12, 1984) was an American writer. His works, some of which have been filmed, includeIf He Hollers Let Him Go, published in 1945, and theHarlem Detective series of novels for which he is best known, set in the 1950s and early 1960s and featuring two black policemen called Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson.[1] In 1958, Himes won France'sGrand Prix de Littérature Policière.
Chester Himes was born inJefferson City,Missouri, on July 29, 1909, to Joseph Sandy Himes and Estelle Bomar Himes; his father was a professor of industrial trades at ablack college, and his mother, prior to getting married, was a teacher atScotia Seminary.[2] Chester Himes grew up in a middle-class home in Missouri. When he was about 12 years old, his father took a teaching job in theArkansas Delta at Branch Normal College (nowUniversity of Arkansas at Pine Bluff), and soon a tragedy took place that would profoundly shape Himes's view of race relations. He had misbehaved and his mother made him sit out a gunpowder demonstration that he and his brother, Joseph Jr., were supposed to conduct during a school assembly. Working alone, Joseph mixed the chemicals; they exploded in his face. Rushed to the nearest hospital, the blinded boy was refused treatment because ofJim Crow laws. "That one moment in my life hurt me as much as all the others put together", Himes wrote in his autobiographyThe Quality of Hurt.
I loved my brother. I had never been separated from him and that moment was shocking, shattering, and terrifying....We pulled into the emergency entrance of a white people's hospital. White clad doctors and attendants appeared. I remember sitting in the back seat with Joe watching the pantomime being enacted in the car's bright lights. A white man was refusing; my father was pleading. Dejectedly my father turned away; he was crying like a baby. My mother was fumbling in her handbag for a handkerchief; I hoped it was for a pistol.
The family later settled inCleveland, Ohio. His parents' marriage was unhappy and eventually ended in divorce.[3]
In 1925, Himes's family left Pine Bluff and relocated to Cleveland, Ohio, where he attendedEast High School. He attendedThe Ohio State University inColumbus, Ohio, where he became a member ofAlpha Phi Alpha fraternity,[4] but was expelled for playing a prank. In late 1928, he was arrested and sentenced to jail and hard labor for 20 to 25 years forarmed robbery and sent toOhio Penitentiary. In prison, he wrote short stories and had them published in national magazines. He stated thatwriting in prison and being published was a way to earn respect from guards and fellow inmates, as well as to avoid violence.
His first stories appeared in 1931 inThe Bronzeman and, starting in 1934, inEsquire. His story "To What Red Hell" (published inEsquire in 1934) as well as to his novelCast the First Stone – only much later republished unabridged asYesterday Will Make You Cry (1998) – dealt with the catastrophic prison fire Himes witnessed atOhio Penitentiary in 1930.
In 1934, Himes was transferred toLondon Prison Farm and in April 1936 was released on parole into his mother's custody. Following his release, he worked at part-time jobs while continuing to write. During this period, he came into contact withLangston Hughes, who facilitated Himes's entree into the world of literature and publishing.
In 1937, Himes married Jean Johnson.[5]
In the 1940s, Himes spent time inLos Angeles, working as a screenwriter but also producing two novels,If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945) andLonely Crusade (1947), which charted the experiences ofthe great migration, drawn by the city's defense industries, and their dealings with the established black community, fellow workers, unions and management. He also provided an analysis of theZoot Suit Riots forThe Crisis, the magazine of theNAACP.
Mike Davis inCity of Quartz: Excavating the Future of Los Angeles, describing the prevalence of racism in Hollywood in the 1940s and '50s, cites Himes' brief career as a screenwriter forWarner Brothers, terminated whenJack L. Warner heard about him and said: "I don't want no niggers on this lot."[6] Himes later wrote in his autobiography:
Up to the age of thirty-one I had been hurt emotionally, spiritually and physically as much as thirty-one years can bear. I had lived in theSouth, I had fallen down an elevator shaft, I had been kicked out of college, I had served seven and one half years in prison, I had survived the humiliating last five years ofDepression in Cleveland; and still I was entire, complete, functional; my mind was sharp, my reflexes were good, and I was not bitter. But under the mental corrosion of race prejudice in Los Angeles I became bitter and saturated with hate.
Back on the East Coast Himes received a scholarship at theYaddo artists' community, where he stayed and worked in May and June 1948, in a room oppositePatricia Highsmith's.[7]
Himes separated from his wife, Jean, in 1952, and the following year he began a period of travels by boarding a ship to France.[8] By the 1950s, he had decided to settle permanently in France, a country he liked in part due to his popularity in literary circles. InParis, Himes was friends with his contemporaries; the political cartoonistOliver Harrington and fellowexpatriate writersRichard Wright,James Baldwin andWilliam Gardner Smith.
In Paris in the late 1950s Chester met his second wife, Lesley Packard, when she interviewed him for theHerald Tribune; she wrote a fashion column there under the name of "Monica". He described her as "Irish-English with blue-gray eyes and very good looking"; he also saw her courage and resilience, Chester said to Lesley: "You're the only true color-blind person I've ever met in my life."[9] After he suffered a stroke, in 1959, Lesley quit her job and nursed him back to health. She cared for him for the rest of his life, and worked with him as his informal editor, proofreader, confidante and, as the directorMelvin Van Peebles dubbed her, "his watchdog". After a long engagement, they were married in 1978,[9] as Chester Himes was still legally married to his first wife, Jean, and only able to gain a divorce that year.[10]
Lesley and Chester faced adversities as amixed-race couple, but they prevailed.[9] Their circle of political colleagues and creative friends included towering figuresLangston Hughes,Richard Wright,Malcolm X,Carl Van Vechten,Picasso,Jean Miotte,Ollie Harrington,Nikki Giovanni,Ishmael Reed andJohn A. Williams. Williams based the main character of his 1967 novelThe Man Who Cried I Am on Himes. Bohemian life in Paris would in turn lead Lesley and Chester to the South of France and finally on to Spain, where they lived until Chester's death in 1984.
In 1969, Himes moved toMoraira, Spain, where he died in 1984 fromParkinson's disease, at the age of 75. He is buried atBenissa cemetery.
Some regard Himes as the literary equal ofDashiell Hammett andRaymond Chandler.[11] Ishmael Reed says: "[Himes] taught me the difference between a black detective andSherlock Holmes" and it would be more than 30 years until another black mystery writer,Walter Mosley and hisEasy Rawlins and Mouse series, had even a similar effect.[12]S. A. Cosby inThe New York Times also positively compared Himes to Chandler and Hammett, enjoying his writing of the "Black experience" and skepticism regarding theAmerican Dream. Cosby also opined that Himes' works influenced future writers and cited his Harlem cycle as being among his favorite work.[13]
In 1996, Himes's widow Lesley Himes went to New York to work with Ed Margolies on the first biographical treatment of Himes's life, entitledThe Several Lives of Chester Himes, by long-time Himes scholarsEdward Margolies and Michel Fabre, published in 1997 byUniversity Press of Mississippi. Later, novelist and Himes scholarJames Sallis published a more deeply detailed biography of Himes calledChester Himes: A Life (2000).[14]
A detailed examination of Himes's writing and writings about him can be found inChester Himes: An Annotated Primary and Secondary Bibliography compiled by Michel Fabre, Robert E. Skinner, and Lester Sullivan (Greenwood Press, 1992).
| External videos | |
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 Presentation by Lawrence Jackson onChester B. Himes: A Biography, September 1, 2018,C-SPAN |
In 2017,Lawrence P. Jackson published a significant biography of Himes, more than 600 pages in length, titledChester B. Himes: A Biography.[15] Reviewing the biography forJohns Hopkins Magazine, Bret McCabe noted it makes the case that while "[Himes's] debut,If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945), is as admired today as it was in its time[...] its follow-up,Lonely Crusade (1947), is overlooked and underappreciated, and positions it as a key text in reckoning both Himes's subsequent career and later works."[16]
Himes's novels encompassed manygenres including the crime novel/mystery and political polemics, exploring racism in the United States.
Chester Himes wrote about African Americans in general, especially in two books that are concerned with labor relations and African-American workplace issues.If He Hollers Let Him Go—which contains many autobiographical elements—is about a blackshipyard worker in Los Angeles duringWorld War II struggling against racism, as well as his own violent reactions to racism.Lonely Crusade is a longer work that examines some of the same issues.
Cast the First Stone (1952) is based on Himes's experiences in prison. It was Himes's first novel but was not published until about ten years after it was written. One reason may have been Himes's unusually candid treatment – for that time – of a homosexual relationship. Originally written in the third person, it was rewritten in the first person in a more "hard-boiled" style.Yesterday Will Make You Cry (1993), published after Himes's death, restored the original manuscript. The restored 1998 edition includes a 1997 introduction by filmmaker and writerMelvin Van Peebles.[17]
Himes also wrote a series ofHarlem Detective novels featuringCoffin Ed Johnson andGravedigger Jones, New York City police detectives inHarlem. The novels feature a mordant emotional timbre and a fatalistic approach to street situations.Funeral homes are often part of the story, and funeral directorH. Exodus Clay is a recurring character in these books.
The titles of the series includeA Rage in Harlem,The Real Cool Killers,The Crazy Kill,All Shot Up,The Big Gold Dream,The Heat's On,Cotton Comes to Harlem, andBlind Man with a Pistol; all written between 1957 and 1969. The final entry in the series was to bePlan B, published posthumously in 1983.
Cotton Comes to Harlem was made into a movie in 1970, which was set in that time period, rather than the earlier period of the original book. A sequel,Come Back, Charleston Blue, based uponThe Heat's On, was released in 1972.For Love of Imabelle was made into a film under the titleA Rage in Harlem in 1991. In the 1980s, British publisherAllison and Busby reprinted several of the Harlem detective novels in editions that featured paintings byEdward Burra on the covers.[18][19][20]
In May 2011, and again in 2020Penguin Modern Classics in London republished five of Himes's detective novels from the Harlem Cycle. The literary estate is overseen by Chester and Lesley's "niece"Sarah Pirozek (daughter of Lesley's best and oldest friend).
A useful companion to the two volumes of autobiography isConversations with Chester Himes, edited by Michel Fabre and Robert E. Skinner, published by University Press of Mississippi in 1995.
Four Chester Himes novels were made into feature films:If He Hollers, Let Him Go!, in which he was uncredited, directed by Charles Martin;[21]Cotton Comes to Harlem, directed byOssie Davis in 1970;[22]Come Back, Charleston Blue (The Heat's On) (1972), directed by Mark Warren,[23] andA Rage in Harlem (starringGregory Hines andDanny Glover), directed byBill Duke in 1991.[24] Two Himes short stories "The Assassin of Saint Nicholas Avenue"[25] and "Tang" have also been filmed as short subjects, the latter included as a segment in the 1994anthology television filmCosmic Slop.[26]
Himes wasCatholic, but professed to be "not a good one".[27] At the time of his death in Moraira, he was married to Lesley Himes (née Packard), his partner, confidante, and informal editor, since 1959.[28] She died in 2010.[9]
Chester Himes, Kappa, (Ohio State University), Author
