Having Read Richard Wright's Native Son 3/15/2015

 [ I am back working through my prison journal. It is out of order… Well, the order is as I have opened boxes. The date in the title is the date it was written. I hope this is not confusing. What you are reading is what you get for your tax dollars. sch 10/13/2025] 

Finishing this novel took something like 27 years. I was supposed to have read Richard Wright's Native Son in Mr. Brown's 12th Grade Honors English class. I read the Cliff Notes version (I did this also with Crime and Punishment).

Oddly, I somehow managed to read Wright's essay, How "Bigger" Was Born. That essay may have been where 18-year-old me thought he had not enough experience to be a writer. I may have carried that idea into my twenties. Which may be one of several reasons I gave up writing. Writers - read this essay!

But what do I think of Wright's novel? Too impressive for any easy description. I imagined the pain Wright had to have had writing the book. Painful for me, knowing I do not have the material or the talent in me to write a novel as deep, as moving, as absorbing as this one. All I can do is give witness to what I have seen in my life. I am not even a foothill to Richard Wright. Read his book now.

 One last thing: my apologies to Ron Brown and Richard Wright for ducking native Son back in 1978.

 sch