Chester B. Himes: A Biography

In Jackson’s thorough biography of author Chester Himes (1909–1984), the times come alive more than the subject, who shines through mostly in his own words rather than in Jackson’s interpretation. Himes was the third child and third son born to his Missouri professor parents. Their tumultuous marriage had a destabilizing effect on Himes, who, though quite smart, ended his formal education after an embarrassing encounter with a prostitute and committed a series of crimes that landed him in prison. There, Himes started writing short fiction, echoing O. Henry, who became famous after serving a sentence in the same prison. Jackson tackles the milestones of Himes’s career: the publications of his first stories in the 1930s; the publication of and response to the provocative 1945 novel If He Hollers Let Him Go; his interactions with literary figures such as James Baldwin, Jo Sinclair, and Richard Wright; and his complicated relationships with his various publishers. One of the most illuminating sections concerns Himes’s response to the WWII internment of Japanese-Americans, which he strongly opposed. The biography is exhaustive, covering both Himes’s life and the times he lived in, but unfortunately it flattens both.[em] (July) [/em]