Close Modal
Wish List 0 Wish List 0
Download high-resolution image Look inside

The End of a Primitive

A Novel

Author Chester Himes
Look inside
Paperback
$17.00 US
Knopf | Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
5.14"W x 7.95"H x 0.65"D   | 8 oz | 24 per carton
On sale Oct 08, 2024 | 224 Pages | 9780593686706
Add to cart Add to list Exam Copies
Two lives spiral into a fatal pas de deux during a weekend of sex, alcohol and violence—from the acclaimed author of the Harlem Detectives series

Jesse Robinson and Kriss Cummings once shared a passionate weekend in Chicago, but it’s been years since they’ve seen each other. Jesse, a black writer, refuses to pen the inspirational novel his agent wants, and sits in his Harlem tenement as his career plummets accordingly. Kriss, a white divorcée, has found moderate success at her office job, but is disillusioned with life. Often sleeping with black men, she’s pilloried for “solving the Negro Problem in bed.” Each of them lonely and embittered by the racial tensions of McCarthy-era America, they reunite for a whiskey-soaked weekend in 1952, spiraling into a violent, malicious pas de deux that is fated to end in destruction.
Praise for Chester Himes's The End of a Primitive

 “A key American novel.” —The Washington Post

 “Shockingly raw. . . . Powerful.” —The New York Times Book Review

 “[Himes] produced some of the most original novels we have in the American canon.” —NPR
© Carl Van Vechten, courtesy of the Van Vechten Trust and the Beinecke Library at Yale University
Chester (Bomar) Himes began his writing career while serving in the Ohio State Penitentiary for armed robbery from 1929 - 1936. His account of the horrific 1930 Penitentiary fire that killed over three hundred men appeared in Esquire in 1932 and from this Himes was able to get other work published. From his first novel, If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945), Himes dealt with the social and psychological repercussions of being black in a white-dominated society. Beginning in 1953, Himes moved to Europe, where he lived as an expatriate in France and Spain. There, he met and was strongly influenced by Richard Wright. It was in France that he began his best-known series of crime novels---including Cotton Comes to Harlem (1965) and Run Man Run (1966)---featuring two Harlem policemen Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson. As with Himes's earlier work, the series is characterized by violence and grisly, sardonic humor. View titles by Chester Himes

About

Two lives spiral into a fatal pas de deux during a weekend of sex, alcohol and violence—from the acclaimed author of the Harlem Detectives series

Jesse Robinson and Kriss Cummings once shared a passionate weekend in Chicago, but it’s been years since they’ve seen each other. Jesse, a black writer, refuses to pen the inspirational novel his agent wants, and sits in his Harlem tenement as his career plummets accordingly. Kriss, a white divorcée, has found moderate success at her office job, but is disillusioned with life. Often sleeping with black men, she’s pilloried for “solving the Negro Problem in bed.” Each of them lonely and embittered by the racial tensions of McCarthy-era America, they reunite for a whiskey-soaked weekend in 1952, spiraling into a violent, malicious pas de deux that is fated to end in destruction.

Praise

Praise for Chester Himes's The End of a Primitive

 “A key American novel.” —The Washington Post

 “Shockingly raw. . . . Powerful.” —The New York Times Book Review

 “[Himes] produced some of the most original novels we have in the American canon.” —NPR

Author

© Carl Van Vechten, courtesy of the Van Vechten Trust and the Beinecke Library at Yale University
Chester (Bomar) Himes began his writing career while serving in the Ohio State Penitentiary for armed robbery from 1929 - 1936. His account of the horrific 1930 Penitentiary fire that killed over three hundred men appeared in Esquire in 1932 and from this Himes was able to get other work published. From his first novel, If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945), Himes dealt with the social and psychological repercussions of being black in a white-dominated society. Beginning in 1953, Himes moved to Europe, where he lived as an expatriate in France and Spain. There, he met and was strongly influenced by Richard Wright. It was in France that he began his best-known series of crime novels---including Cotton Comes to Harlem (1965) and Run Man Run (1966)---featuring two Harlem policemen Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson. As with Himes's earlier work, the series is characterized by violence and grisly, sardonic humor. View titles by Chester Himes

Other Books by this Author

Privacy Policy   |   Terms of Use

© 2024 Penguin Random House

Back to Top
0
    • 0
    Wish List (0)