Chester B. Himes

by Lawrence P. Jackson

  394“I was a real celebrity”: Ibid., 185.

  395“I confess it is”: CH to Lesley Packard, July 28, 1959, CHP-T, box 6, folder 5.

  395“I am going to Paris”: Fischer to CH, September 10, 1959, CHP-T, box 3, folder 15.

  395drunken debacle: CH to Lorraine Williams, October 22, 1965, DCDJ, 47.

  396“The French . . . have gone mad”: Boucher, “Criminals at Large,” 13.

  396“The question arose”: Lewis Nichols, “In and Out of Books,” New York Times Book Review, September 27, 1959, 8.

  396“I dread reading”: CH to CVV, October 5, 1959, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1956–1961.”

  396“It hurt more”: MLA, 196.

  397“The New York Times could not have chosen”: CH to editor, New York Times, October 10, 1959, CHP-T, box 5, folder 15.

  397“I haven’t seen anything”: CH to CVV, March 30, 1959, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1956–1961.”

  397“a group of negro residents in Paris”: Legat Paris to Director FBI, February 11, 1960, Oliver Wendell Harrington, FBI File #100-379980, Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  397“Possible Subversives Among US Personnel”: Legat Paris to Director FBI, February 11, 1960, Richard Nathaniel Wright, FBI File #100-157464, p. 169, Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  397Irle saw the author . . . “lots of times”: Abiola Irele, interview with author, September 2013.

  398“flamboyant” . . . “truculent”: Mongo Beti, “Le Pauvre Christ de Bomba Explique!,” Peuple Noirs, Peuples Africains 19 (1981): 116–17.

  13. FIVE CORNERED SQUARE

  399“the worst moment”: MLA, 198.

  400“this veritable ocean”: CH to Lesley Packard, n.d. [c. 1961], CHP-T, box 5, folder 6.

  400“This is me, Chester Himes”: MLA, p. 200.

  400“You know that I”: Regine Fischer to CH, March 1, 1959 [mistaken date], CHP-T, box 3, folder 16.

  400“For you I have never”: Fischer to CH, March 15, 1960, ibid.

  400“I don’t have”: Fischer to CH, January 2, 1960, CHP-T, box 6, folder 16.

  401“a village of poor”: CH to JAW, October 11, 1962, DCDJ, 2.

  401“Never stop giving”: Walter Coleman to CH, May 26, 1970, CHP-T, box 3, folder 5.

  402“Everyone here”: CH to Lester Granger, February 14, 1960, CHP-T, box 3, folder 18.

  402“It’s so sweet”: Fischer to CH, September 30, 1960, CHP-T, box 6, folder 16.

  403“an extemporaneous journey”: MLA, 211.

  404“Get the cat and the dog”: Lesley Packard Himes, interview with author, May 2009.

  404“as a failure”: CH, A Case of Rape (1980; repr., New York: Carroll and Graf, 1994), 34.

  404“I don’t want him to wallow”: MLA, 216.

  404Wright had been closest to his girlfriend: Ollie Harrington, “The Last Days of Richard Wright,” Ebony, February 1961, 86.

  405“How dare she do this?”: Lesley Himes interview.

  405“Dick was the greatest”: MLA, 214.

  405Wright’s “enemies”: Ibid., 215.

  405“I had never realized before”: Ibid., 217.

  406“DChief call d’young”: William Melvin Kelley to CH, December 14, 1970, CHP-T, box 4, folder 12.

  407“If you want me”: CH to Packard (“Monday afternoon Lesley darling”), n.d. [c. winter–spring 1961], CHP-T, box 4, folder 7.

  407“as much as I would”: Packard to CH, (“Thursday evening Chester darling”), n.d. [c. late fall 1961] CHP-T, box 4, folder 7.

  407“broke, outcast, put down”: MLA, 220.

  408“very pleasant” Maurice Girodias: : Fischer to CH, May 16, 1961, CHP-T, box 6, folder 16.

  408On April 28: Contract between CH and the Olympia Press, April 28, 1961, CHP-T, box 19, folder 2.

  409“absolutely delighted with the piece”: Herbert Hill to CH, June 17, 1961, CHP-T, box 4, folder 1.

  410performing in white face: “Dean Dixon, 61, Dies, Conductor in Exile,” and Ronald Smothers, “His ‘Maestro’ Was Hard Won,” both in New York Times, November 5, 1976, 18.

  411“like a mighty river”: MLA, 227.

  411“I find that”: CH to Packard, September 18, 1961.

  412“very much in love”: CH to CVV, December 16, 1961, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1956–1961.”

  412“sailed over the crushed steering wheel”: MLA, 237.

  412“outstanding human values”: “Exodus Opens Cannes Festival,” Chicago Daily Tribune, May 4, 1961, C3; “2 Movies Share Top Cannes Prizes,” New York Times, May 19, 1961, 23.

  413“I’ll do what I can”: Marcel Duhamel to CH, October 27, 1961, CHP-T, box 1, folder 11.

  413“defending the honor and integrity”: CH to Packard (“Friday Lesley darling—my own darling”), n.d. [c. fall 1961], CHP-T, box 4, folder 7.

  413“out of the ordinary”: Annette Insdorf, “Cohn Makes the Right Move Towards Success,” Los Angeles Times, March 13, 1985, SD-D7.

  413“I was beginning to feel rich”: MLA, 238.

  414“runaway best-seller”: Ibid., 226.

  414“so lucid and active”: CH to Packard (“Friday afternoon . . . Your letter”), n.d. [c. December 1961], CHP-T, box 4, folder 7.

  414“very-very hard”: CH to CVV, December 16, 1961.

  415“when you have no food”: CH, “Baby Sister,” in Black on Black: Baby Sister and Selected Writings (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973), 12.

  415“natural-born call girl”: Ibid., 66.

  415“on the downgrade”: MLA, 241.

  416“To play jazz you must suffer”: CH, “Harlem, ou le cancer de l’Amérique,” Présence Africain, Spring 1963, 81.

  416“someone laughing their way”: CH, The Heat’s On (1966; repr., New York: Vintage, 1988), 146.

  416“Best Achievement in Documentary Production”: “Winner of Film Academy Awards,” Los Angeles Times, April 10, 1962, A2.

  416terminating the contract: CH to Arthur Cohn, April 29 and May 1, 1962, CHP-T, box 3, folder 5.

  417a “semidocumentary” approach: Howard Thompson, “French Filmmaker to Direct Semidocumentary in Harlem,” New York Times, July 7, 1962, 9.

  417the lengthy interview conducted: Jesse H. Walker, “Theatricals,” New York Amsterdam News, July 21, 1962, 17.

  418“got to know” Malcolm X “well”: MLA, 247.

  418Malcolm X excitedly recalled: CH and François Bott, “Chester Himes: Il n’y a dans aucune autre ville du monde,” Adam, November 1964, 75.

  418Malcolm X shared the gory pictures: “French Film Producer Sees Results,” Muhammad Speaks, July 31, 1962, 22.

  419“White syndicates control”: CH, “Harlem, ou le cancer de l’Amérique,” 77.

  419“tough, honest, hip”: Lebert Bethune, “Malcolm X in Europe,” in Malcolm X: The Man and His Times, ed. John Henrik Clarke (New York: Collier, 1969), 228.

  419“distrusting white people”: MLA, 247.

  419briefly reopened file: “Letter to Paris RE: Nation of Islam,” August 8, 1962, CH-FBI.

  419dispute later brought intervention: “Harlem Business Yields in Dispute,” New York Times, June 13, 1962, 9.

  419“The fuse has already”: “2,500 at Moslem Rally,” New York Amsterdam News, July 28, 1962, 33.

  420loudly denouncing Los Angeles mayor: “Mayor Yorty Says Cult Backs ‘Hate,’ ” New York Times, July 27, 1962, 8.

  421She recognized in Van Vechten’s: Marianne Greenwood to CVV, July 27, 1962, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1962–1964.”

  421“an intense impression”: CH to CVV, October 9, 1962, ibid.

  422the offer was withdrawn: Robert Cromie, “The Bystander,” Chicago Tribune, April 8, 1962, D8.

  422voted to award Williams $2000: “Novelist Rejects Award; Lays Earlier Loss to Race Bias,” Afro-American, June 2, 1962, 20.

  422a few pages of Lonely Crusade: CH, “From Lonely Crusade,” in Soon, One Morning, ed. Herbet Hill (New York: Knopf, 1963), 210–30.
<
br />   423“Baby Sister consists”: Herbert Hill, memo to Arthur Cohn, April 16, 1962, MF, box 46, folder 56; JAW, “Chester Himes Is Getting On,” New York Herald Tribune, October 11, 1964, 2.

  423Hill had become an FBI informant: Christopher Phelps, “Herbert Hill and the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Journal of Labor History (November 2012): 561–70.

  423“fanatical” “antiwhite organization”: Legat Paris to Director FBI, August 8, 1962, CH-FBI; Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (New York: Viking, 2011), 212.

  423“the Negro” be depicted “more honestly”: John C. Waugh, “NAACP Scolds Hollywood on Race,” Christian Science Monitor, June 27, 1963, 1.

  424“such important new writers”: Robert Kirsch, “Art of Negro Poets and Authors Transcends Race,” Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1963, D6; L. M. Meriwether, “From Cover to Cover,” Los Angeles Sentinel, May 30, 1963, A6.

  424“shake his motherfucking hand”: JAW to CH, March 20, 1966, DCDJ, 48.

  425“I suppose I offered”: MLA, 248.

  425“I did not like”: CH to CVV, October 9, 1962.

  425“cut off” his career: MLA, 248.

  425“$10K Cadillac driving”: CH, “Harlem, ou le cancer de l’Amérique,” 51.

  426“the black bourgeoisie”: Ibid., 64.

  426“Our primary objective”: Ibid., 60.

  426“the racists in Mississippi”: CH to CVV, October 9, 1962.

  427“U.S. racists were”: CH to JAW, October 11, 1962, 2.

  427“It will happen”: CH, “James Meredith: Il y en a pour 450 ans,” Candide, October 8–10, 1962, 6.

  427“rain of blood”: Ibid.

  427“In trouble with the OAS”: CH to CVV, October 9, 1962.

  428“a European locale”: CH to Arnold Gingrich, November 14, 1962, AG, box 12, folder “H #2.”

  428Die Welt also agreed: Dr. Ramseger to CH, December 30, 1962, CHP-T, box 5, folder 13.

  428“I don’t know how”: CH to CVV, n.d. [November 29, 1962], CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1962–1964.”

  429Gallimard claimed: Marcel Duhamel to CH, September 12, 1962, CHP-T, box 1, folder 11.

  429Chester identified the misstatements: CH to Duhamel, December 17, 1962, ibid.

  429“I did my best”: Duhamel to CH, December 28, 1962, ibid.

  429paid 7500 francs: CH, contract with Libraire Plon, December 17, 1962, CHP-T, box 19, folder 2.

  14. COTTON COMES TO HARLEM

  431“What the hell”: MMH-DCDJ, 219.

  431“disparaging remarks”: MLA, 201.

  431“considered the best in New York”: CH to Lesley Packard (“Friday: Lesley darling, in one”), n.d. [c. early 1963], CHP-T, box 4, folder 7.

  431“at the very top”: CH to JAW, November 1962, DCDJ, 30.

  431“One day people”: Allan Morrison, “Expatriate Novelist Himes,” Jet, January 31, 1963, 22–23.

  432“my nerves are on the point”: CH to Packard, n.d. “Wednesday” [c. January 9, 1963], CHP-T, box 4, folder 7.

  432“it isn’t easy”: CH to JAW, Friday, February 1963, DCDJ, 38.

  432“elaborate and sometimes difficult”: Marianne Greenwood to CVV, n.d. [c. January 29, 1963], CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1962–1964.”

  433“things did not go well”: CH to CVV, March 29, 1963, ibid.

  433“sometimes well; sometimes poorly”: CH to JAW, February 6, 1963, DCDJ, 39.

  433“our poor colored people”: CH, Cotton Comes to Harlem (1965; repr., New York: Vintage, 1988), 53.

  433“the Back to Africa program”: MLA, 258.

  433“seeking a home”: CH, Cotton Comes to Harlem, 26.

  434“ ‘I wouldn’t do this’ ”: Ibid., 122.

  434“a brain spasm”: MLA, p. 260.

  434“ ‘financial obligations’ ”: CH to JAW, March 6, 1963, DCDJ, 41.

  435“on the tip of a needle”: CH to Packard, April 15, 1963, CHP-T, box 4, folder 7.

  435“parting of the ways”: CH to JAW, February 25, 1963, DCDJ, 40.

  435“If you are involved”: CH to Packard, April 1, 1963, CHP-T, box 4, folder 7.

  435wrote to her, graphically exposing: CH to Lesley Packard, April 3, 1963, ibid.

  436“I feel much better”: CH to CVV, April 12, 1963, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes Chester B. 1962–1964.”

  436“clean bill of health”: CH to CVV, January 15, 1964, ibid.

  436“partial paralysis”: “New York Beat,” Jet, May 23, 1963, 63–64.

  436“slight indisposition”: Joseph Himes to CH, June 8, 1963, CHP-T, box 4, folder 5.

  436“where I am safe”: CH to JAW, March 6, 1963, DCDJ, 41.

  436“I have discovered”: CH to CVV, March 29, 1963, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes Chester B. 1962–1964.”

  437“the lost and hungry black people”: CH, Cotton Comes to Harlem, 7.

  437“I want to go to Africa”: CH to CVV, April 5, 1963, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes Chester B. 1962–1964.”

  437“I became very much disliked”: MLA, 269.

  438“a number of articles”: CH to CVV, January 15, 1964.

  438“Go away!”: Melvin Van Peebles, interview with author, February 2010.

  438“People are crowding”: CH to CVV, January 15, 1964.

  438“not like my other books”: MLA, 269.

  438“more famous in Paris”: Ibid., 270.

  439“The purpose of this work”: Guy de Bosscheres, review of Une Affaire de viol by Chester Himes, Présence Africain, Fall 1963, 240.

  439“asking me what had happened”: MLA, 271.

  440“time to sharpen it”: CH to CVV, January 15, 1964.

  440“I am a writer”: CH to Packard (“Thursday morning, Lesley darling, I got your”), n.d. [c. early 1964], CHP-T, box 4, folder 7.

  440“Holidays always bother me”: Ibid.

  440“I am anxious to get”: CH to CVV, January 15, 1964.

  440“My books drive”: CH to Packard (“Thursday morning, Lesley darling, I got your”), n.d. [c. early 1964].

  441the first time a U.S. motion picture: Renata Adler, “Screen: A Black G.I. and a French Girl,” New York Times, July 9, 1968, 9.

  442“the greatest black American”: Melvin Van Peebles, “Chester Himes, l’invaincu,” France-Observateur, February 20, 1964, 14.

  442“more excellent way”: Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” in Why We Can’t Wait (1964; repr., New York: Signet, 2000), 100.

  443“a good book I suppose”: CH to CVV, April 6, 1964, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes Chester B. 1962–1964.”

  443“very bloody book”: Tristan Renaud, “Chester Himes: ‘Homeless,’ ” Les Lettres Francaises, March 12, 1964, 5.

  443the “long journey”: CH to CVV, n.d. [May 12, 1964], CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes Chester B. 1962–1964.”

  443“handsome” and “full of life”: Van Peebles, “Chester Himes, l’invaincu,” 13.

  444“the same terms used”: Van Peebles, “Harlem en Feu,” France-Observateur, July 23, 1964, 9.

  445“I’m sure you have”: Don Preston to CH, September 18, 1964, CHP-T, box 1, folder 1.

  445“Not only is there indefinable poverty”: CH to CVV, October 23, 1964, CVVP, box He–Hols, folder “Himes, Chester B. 1962–1964.”

  445“which I consider”: MLA, 289.

  445“that racism has greatly”: CH to CVV, October 23, 1964.

  446“I’m an evil, highly sensitive”: MLA, 278.

  446“in the back of my mind”: CH to Seymour Lawrence, November 4, 1964, AAK.

  446organize a small insurrection: Peniel Joseph, Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America (New York: Henry Holt, 2006), 313.

  447Fidel Castro’s racist policies: Carlos Moore, “Le People noir a-t-il sa place dans la revolution cubaine?,” Présence Africain, Summer 1964, 177–230.

  447“unfriendly, very savage”: Carlos Moore, interview with author, May 2010.
>
  447the “wonderful” essay: MLA, 268.

  447“Chester had this thing”: Moore interview.

  448“bitter and hermetic”: William Gardner Smith, The Stone Face (New York: Farrar, Straus Giroux, 1963), 176.

  448“Chester was a very bitter”: Moore interview.

  448$7500 on signing: CH, contract with Dell and Putnam for Cotton Comes to Harlem, November 4, 1964, CHP-T, box 14, folder 1.

  448Stein and Day for $10,000: CH, contract with Stein and Day, January 29, 1965, CHP-T, box 14, folder 1.

  448“the American publishers”: CH to CVV, October 23, 1964.

  448“displayed in the place of prominence”: MLA, 290.

  449“After that everybody”: Ibid., 290–91.

  449On November 22: The most accurate biography of Malcolm X, Manning Marable’s Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (New York: Viking, 2011), suggests that Malcolm X arrived in Paris on November 18, 1964, and checked into the Hotel Dêlavine, where he is to have remained for five days until the lecture (p. 386). Marable cites as evidence Nicol Davidson, “Alioune Diop and the African Renaissance,” which does not mention Malcolm X or his visit to Paris. Malcolm X’s travel diary, located in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, appears to have its final entry on November 16, 1964, and his FBI file picks him up in the United States on November 24, 1964. In this case, I find Carlos Moore’s representation of the events and the timetable more credible than Marable’s account.

  449took him to the Café Realis: Carlos Moore, “Malcolm, je me souviens,” Présence Africain, Spring 1967, 85.

  449“Chester Himes is here?”: Moore interview.

  450“that few people had known”: Moore, “Malcolm, je me souviens,” 88.

  450“Carlos knows this”: Moore, interview.

  450“You’re being gullible”: Ibid.

  450“beautiful things”: Carlos Moore to CH, May 19, 1975, CHP-T, box 4, folder 19.

  451“we are where we are”: Ishmael Reed to CH, November 23, 1970, CHP-T, box 5, folder 13.

  451“They’re going to get me”: Moore interview.

  451Chester and Lesley silently hunkered: Lesley Packard Himes, interview with author, May 2009.

  451“bridge between the peoples”: Malcolm X, “The Afro-American in the Face of the African Revolution,” p. 1, Carlos Moore Papers, box 6, folder “1964–1965,” Ralph Bunche Center, University of California at Los Angeles.