Chester B. Himes
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But Chester’s sniping at friends occurred in the context of his own diminishing lucidity. By 1976 he had found that “my mind is getting very erratic.” Concentration was a problem too. After he had submitted his draft of the second volume of the autobiography to his publisher, he was beyond physical exhaustion. “My health has deteriorated so completely I need help of all kinds and at all times.” When Jean replied to another request for divorce from Chester, there was a note of pity for how much he was suffering. Chester deflected her concern, just noting, “My sins are catching up to me.” That same year he wrote miserably to Marcel Duhamel, “I will probably be dead soon but things will go on the same.”
His friends continued to support his work in the United States. At a New York party in October 1976, attended by William Demby, Toni Cade Bambara, Maya Angelou, Steve Cannon, and Quincy Troupe, Ishmael Reed asked a white professor named Edward Margolies why he had dismissed Chester’s detective fiction as “potboilers.” Satisfied by Margolies’s beating a hasty retreat, Reed wrote Chester, “How does it feel to see your critics eat crow in your lifetime.” It felt good to Chester, but the physical collapse that John Williams had been writing of since the mid-1960s opened the door to being haunted by other feelings. Chester and Lesley trooped back to New York in November for the publication of My Life of Absurdity. Before he made the trip, he wrote to his brother Joe, with The Third Generation and his memoirs and their representation of his family in the back of his mind, “I hope that I haven’t offended you by my ‘literature.’ ”
In a country swarming with discotheques and the latest fitness craze, My Life of Absurdity’s reviewers wrote about Chester as the creator of a detective series, not as a pioneer choosing a sometimes stylish, sometimes desperate self-exile to resolve the dilemma of racial and social injustice. Even so, Chester was now receiving the most serious praise of his lifetime and in the best places. The Los Angeles Times declared that “taken together, the two volumes are a satisfying, fascinating work by an important novelist.” Chester was now considered a man who had written the detective series “very successfully,” won prizes, and made popular movies. In one of the most thoughtful, generous, and incisive examinations of his work, the novelist Al Young tackled the autobiography for the New York Times Book Review. Young’s review was a turnabout play, since he had had a 1972 review of The Quality of Hurt changed by a “knuckleheaded” editor, without his consent, to be realigned with Nathan Huggins’s blast. Reminding readers that the first volume was “a singularly poignant autobiography,” Young then agreeably dealt with the second part: “The controlled intensity and lucid sense of focus that distinguished the earlier volume are missing. But this lack is more than made up for by the sheer passion, thoroughness and candor with which [Himes] writes about and, at the same time, deromanticizes the artistic expatriate life in which outrage, loneliness and frivolity abound.”
My Life of Absurdity opens with unforgettable chapters showing Chester polishing the stainless steel fixtures of a Times Square cafeteria and saying “I got you beat now, motherfuckers,” to New American Library editors in an elevator. The heart of the book was his journey with Regine in the ignoble Volkswagen lemon. He changes style then and moves in an intertextual direction, pioneered by Reed (whom he had directly queried about his method in Mumbo Jumbo), mixing portions of mildly emended letters to Carl Van Vechten and Lesley to flesh out the narrative of café life in Europe between roughly 1956 and 1970. He illustrated some pages with photographs of his mother and father and his early life, followed by photos of his life abroad with his white girlfriends. The book was out in the world only a few months when Chester learned that Marcel Duhamel, thought by Chester to be the honest man among the thieves at Gallimard, died suddenly of a heart attack. Mortality was at his doorstep.
He was also wrongly despairing at having missed the admiration of both the reading public and his intimates. Instead his reputation was climbing. Critics were saying that he had written four “classic” books before leaving the United States. In fact, full-length critical studies by James Lunquist and Stephen Milliken were at hand. Chester feared missteps, nonetheless. “I should not have written autobiography. It seems to have embarrassed everyone,” he moaned in a letter to Rosalyn Targ in 1977. Some of the resentment toward the book should have been anticipated, since he made casual, belittling remarks about friends like John Williams and Walter Coleman that he declined to make about other writers or publishers powerful enough to hurt his reputation. Walter Coleman, who had housed Chester regularly in the 1950s and ’60s and enabled him to retreat from Paris, wrote Chester that he was free to write whatever he liked, fiction or nonfiction, so long as he spelled his name right. “I’ve made a lot of enemies,” he told Chester, “but I’m still fucking with everybody.” Generously, Walter uplifted his older friend, regardless of his continuing to publish: “You have already made a big contribution to the human race.”
Chester tried to keep going. Raunchy Players magazine published five pages of his autobiography early in 1977, but by fall he would come to grips with the change of life, “sex doesn’t delight me anymore.”
That summer, he had feared illness would overtake him and that Jean, as his wife, would have legal right to his copyrights. He sued for divorce in a Paris court. Jean, living in Chicago and the well-regarded director of city recreation programs, and Chester became officially divorced on May 2, 1978. He and Lesley were married soon after. Chester remained depressed, mostly because of his ill health. Lesley wrote Joe that “his moral being is not so great and he feels very bad about not being able to do more around the house, studio, etc.” They decided to sell the house in Spain, and retire in either Brazil or the United States, where they might have medical care nearby and Chester could be more comfortable.
To do so, by early 1980, Chester and Lesley were hoping to settle in California and have a single-level house. They visited the Bay Area in the spring, and were regally treated by Ishmael Reed and others belonging to the Before Columbus Foundation. Chester had roughly $50,000 in savings, and with the combination of a strong sale of the Moraira house and a few royalties, he could relocate and live his final years in modest contentment. Joe would counter their dream by describing the situation in 1980, known for the resurgence of the right in American politics and vigorous race-baiting, as “things are a mess here and getting worse.”
That September Chester and Lesley seemed to have a buyer for their small villa, a British Petroleum consultant, who settled on a purchase price of £53,800. Then a global recession shocked the stock market, and the consultant backed out of the deal. The window on spending his final years in California closed firmly. Over seventy years old, Chester spent most of his time in bed now and labored to put on his clothes. He often used a wheelchair to get around, since he couldn’t walk farther than the living room. That had its own risks, as he learned one afternoon when they had car trouble and Lesley had set him up in the chair on the side of the road. The wheels turned and he tumbled onto the ground, although Chester smiled about the mishap when she helped him back into the chair. His doctors were really surprised he could maneuver himself at all. But most difficult of all, as Lesley wrote to Joe, “his memory is terrible.” Unable to attend even to correspondence, Chester found the idea of writing in his studio insufferable. Lesley felt the need to look into where he should be buried and proposed having him cremated and flown to Paris. “Depressing . . . but has to be thought of,” she wrote wearily to Joe.
The Before Columbus Foundation, Ishmael Reed’s brainchild, bestowed on Chester the American Book Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1982. Reed undoubtedly warmed Chester’s heart more than he could have known by informing him that the American director Francis Ford Coppola wanted to make a film of Lonely Crusade. Perhaps the novel awaited rediscovery by another generation. For Chester, the physical end was near. By 1983 he was totally bedridden and listless. Roz Targ visited and confirmed the inevitable: “It saddened me enormously to see Chester looki
ng so wan but there is a certain look in his eyes which shows his indomitable spirit.” Joe wrote his younger brother in August 1984, asking whether Chester wanted to send his papers to the place that Joe had made arrangements for his own documents of a professional life, the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University in New Orleans, where Lesley thoughtfully agreed to deposit them. Lesley’s friends, however, commented on the hurtful and bitter remarks that she had begun using as commonplaces, as she wore down under the strain of caretaking. While not perfect, Lesley had cared dutifully for Chester and she would continue to handle Chester’s literary affairs on her own for decades after his death. On Monday, November 13, 1984, Chester died in the early afternoon in Moraira, where he was buried.
As soon as he heard the news, John Williams wrote to Lesley with a sincere and heartfelt eulogy. He had refused to speak or write to Chester after the chiseling knives in My Life of Absurdity. As much as anyone, Williams had felt the contradictory generosity and wrath of Chester’s great gifts, his spirited realism from the bottom that defied fear and always cut hard enough to draw blood. But Williams saluted him appropriately: “When Chester was Chester I loved him.”
Illustrations
Chester Himes’s birth home, Jefferson City, Missouri. (© Lawrence Jackson)
Himes family, ca. 1911. From left, standing, Joseph, Edward, Estelle. From left, seated, Joseph Jr. and Chester. (Used with permission of Lesley Packard Himes)
Brothers Chester, Edward, and Joseph Himes Jr., ca. 1910. (Chester Himes Papers, Amistad Research Center, New Orleans, Louisiana)
Lincoln Institute, ca. 1910. (Lincoln University Picture Collection, Page Library, Jefferson City, Missouri)
Joseph Himes, Lincoln Institute blacksmith shop, ca. 1911. (Lincoln University Picture Collection, Page Library, Jefferson City, Missouri)
Downtown Cleveland, Ohio, in the 1920s. (Cleveland Public Library Photograph Collection)
Himes’s uncle Roddy, aunt Leah, and cousin Ella Moon. (Courtesy of Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio)
Himes’s Cleveland home. (© Lawrence Jackson)
Home of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Miller.
Ohio criminal record for Chester Himes.
Spring Street entrance, Ohio State Penitentiary, ca. 1929. (Courtesy of the Ohio History Connection)
Penitentiary cellblock fire, April 21, 1930. (Courtesy of the Ohio History Connection)
Prisoners marching, spring 1930. (Courtesy of the Ohio History Connection)
Convicts at dinner, ca. 1930. (Courtesy of the Ohio History Connection)
Himes, ca. 1926. (Chester Himes Papers, Amistad Research Center, New Orleans, Louisiana)
Cousin Henry Lee Moon and his wife-to-be Mollie Lewis, ca. 1938. (Courtesy of Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio)
Lewis Bromfield’s Malabar Farm. (© Lawrence Jackson)
Himes, ca. 1936. (Courtesy of Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio)
Himes and Jean with unidentified couple, ca. 1944. (Used with permission of Lesley Packard Himes)
Jean and Chester Himes, fall 1945. (Afro Newspaper / Gado / Getty Images)
The Himes’s Los Angeles residence. (© Lawrence Jackson)
The Himes brothers. From left, Joseph Jr., Chester, and Edward, ca. 1945. (Chester Himes Papers, Amistad Research Center, New Orleans, Louisiana)
Himes, 1943. (Fisk University, John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library, Special Collections, Julius Rosenwald Fund Collection)
Himes’s mother, Estelle, ca. 1930. (Chester Himes Papers, Amistad Research Center, New Orleans, Louisiana)
Author Richard Wright, May 1943. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Gordon Parks Collection)
Himes, April 1946. (Carl Van Vechten photograph © Van Vechten Trust)
Dust jacket of If He Hollers Let Him Go, 1945.
Photographer Carl Van Vechten, 1938. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Carl Van Vechten Collection)
Himes’s friends. From left, sociologist Horace Cayton and writers Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps, ca. 1946. (Carl Van Vechten photograph © Van Vechten Trust)
Writer Ralph Ellison and wife-to-be Fanny McConnell, fall 1946. (Chester Himes Papers, Amistad Research Center, New Orleans, Louisiana)
Dust jacket of Lonely Crusade, 1947.
Dust jacket of La Croisade de Lee Gordon, 1949.
Himes’s companion Willa Thompson, ca. 1955. (Chester Himes Papers, Amistad Research Center, New Orleans, Louisiana)
Himes, June 1955. (Carl Van Vechten photograph © Van Vechten Trust)
Author Ralph Ellison, 1957. (James Whitmore / Getty Images)
Richard Wright, mid-1950s, at Café Tournon. (Dominique Berretty / Getty Images)
Writer Richard Gibson, ca. 1958. (Carl Van Vechten photograph © Van Vechten Trust)
Writer James Baldwin, 1955. (Carl Van Vechten photograph © Van Vechten Trust)
Novelist William Gardner Smith, ca. 1952. (Carl Van Vechten photograph © Van Vechten Trust)
Himes and companion Regine Fischer, December 1957.
Close-up of Himes at Feux Croisés book panel, spring 1957.
Himes and Regine Fischer at bookstand, spring 1958.
Himes’s fiancée Elaine Lesley Packard, 1963. (Chester Himes Papers, Amistad Research Center, New Orleans, Louisiana)
Elaine Lesley Packard, 1966. (Chester Himes Papers, Amistad Research Center, New Orleans, Louisiana)
Himes, July 1962. (Carl Van Vechten photograph © Van Vechten Trust)
Novelist John Williams, mid-1960s.
John Williams and Himes, 1972.
Himes, ca. 1975. (Chester Himes Papers, Amistad Research Center, New Orleans, Louisiana)
Himes, ca. 1978. (Chester Himes Papers, Amistad Research Center, New Orleans, Louisiana)
Notes
ABOUT SOURCES
The notes that follow include full bibliographic information for all books, interviews, and periodicals that are cited. The more frequently cited archival collections are given in the list of abbreviations below.
Chester Himes’s papers, beginning about 1954, are available at the Amistad Research Center of Tulane University. The collection was mostly transferred by Lesley Himes in the 1990s; she added some materials in the 2000s, which are indicated by the number 180. Another collection, containing some of Chester Himes’s early manuscripts, is at Yale University’s Beinecke Research Library.
In addition, the following archives were valuable: Alcorn State College Archives; James Baldwin Mss., Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington; Charlotta Bass Papers, Southern California Library, Los Angeles; John Earle Bomar Memoirs, South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia; Arna Bontemps Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Library, Syracuse, New York; Alice Browning Papers and Horace Cayton Papers, both at the Vivian Harsh Collection, Carter G. Woodson Branch, Chicago Public Library; John Henrik Clarke Papers, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, New York City; Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland; Fannie Cook Papers, Missouri History Museum Library and Research Center, St. Louis; Malcolm Cowley Papers/Midwest Writers Collection and Maxim Lieber Papers, both at Newberry Library, Chicago; Matt and Evelyn Crawford Papers and John Oliver Killen Papers, both at Stuart A. Rose Library, Emory University, Atlanta; Crowell-Collier Publishing Company Records and Yaddo Papers Collection, both at Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library, New York City; Cuyahoga County Archives, Cleveland; E. Franklin Frazier Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, Washington, D.C.; Georgia State Archives, Morrow, Georgia; Lincoln University Archives/Ethnic Studies Center, Jefferson City, Missouri; Ken McCormick/Doubleday Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Bucklin Moon Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida; Ohio History Connection (formerly Ohio Historical Society), Columbus; Ohio State University Archives, Columbus; Jo Sinclair Papers, Howard Gotlieb Archi
val Research Center, Boston University, Boston; South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia; and Spartanburg County Court Records, Spartanburg, South Carolina.
ABBREVIATIONS
Abbreviations are used throughout the notes that follow for frequently cited archives, people, and published works.
Archives
AAK Alfred A. Knopf Papers, box 30, folder 11, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
AG Arnold Gingrich Papers, Special Collections Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor