J
JAMESBJOHNSON
Guest
THE BIG GOLD DREAM by Chester Himes.
At 150 pages its too long to be any good. It shoulda been 50 pages. I love Chester Himes and couldn't wait for it to be over.
The Story: Alberta Wright, a black cook, swoons while the Reverend Sweet Prophet Brown baptizes her. All think she's dead, and she's hauled off to the morgue.
Alberta has a husband and a lover. The husband immediately summons an old Jewish junk dealer to sell all of Alberta's furniture. The dealer transports all the furniture to his store. The dealer paid the husband shit for the furniture but believes the furniture conceals a fortune in hidden cash, because most black women hide money in furniture. And he's right. He finds 1000 one-hundred dollar bills hid inside a table leg.
Then the lights go out and a hellacious brawl commences that leaves the Jew dead and the husband dead. The killer escapes but without the cash. The Jew hid the money before the brawl in the dark. Alberta's lover is the killer but she's charged with the murder of the husband when she happens upon the stabbing attack afterwards, grabs the knife, and flees into the night. Blood is all over her and the cops catch her quickly. She wont betray her lover. She then appeals to Sweet Prophet Brown to aid her. This all happens during the initial 30 pages or so, and the rest is filler that's occasionally interesting but irrelevant to the plot.
Sweet Prophet Brown reminds me of Al Sharpton. In jail another female inmate says he's a pimp and con man. He is. Brown has all kinds of rackets going.
Himes told it like it was, and that honesty pissed lotsa people off. Rich white men came to Harlem and fucked the young chippies or homo boys, their wives came to Harlem and kept black studs, Jews exploited blacks, and the blacks were buffoons, preachers, criminals, whores, or fools. Most whites were dolts in his books. But Jews were the real villains.
The brawl scene is amazing writing, great stuff.
Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson are black NYPD detectives featured in many of Himes stories. Theyre smart, wise, and vicious but you never learn much about them. They remind me of Cosmic Justice.
At 150 pages its too long to be any good. It shoulda been 50 pages. I love Chester Himes and couldn't wait for it to be over.
The Story: Alberta Wright, a black cook, swoons while the Reverend Sweet Prophet Brown baptizes her. All think she's dead, and she's hauled off to the morgue.
Alberta has a husband and a lover. The husband immediately summons an old Jewish junk dealer to sell all of Alberta's furniture. The dealer transports all the furniture to his store. The dealer paid the husband shit for the furniture but believes the furniture conceals a fortune in hidden cash, because most black women hide money in furniture. And he's right. He finds 1000 one-hundred dollar bills hid inside a table leg.
Then the lights go out and a hellacious brawl commences that leaves the Jew dead and the husband dead. The killer escapes but without the cash. The Jew hid the money before the brawl in the dark. Alberta's lover is the killer but she's charged with the murder of the husband when she happens upon the stabbing attack afterwards, grabs the knife, and flees into the night. Blood is all over her and the cops catch her quickly. She wont betray her lover. She then appeals to Sweet Prophet Brown to aid her. This all happens during the initial 30 pages or so, and the rest is filler that's occasionally interesting but irrelevant to the plot.
Sweet Prophet Brown reminds me of Al Sharpton. In jail another female inmate says he's a pimp and con man. He is. Brown has all kinds of rackets going.
Himes told it like it was, and that honesty pissed lotsa people off. Rich white men came to Harlem and fucked the young chippies or homo boys, their wives came to Harlem and kept black studs, Jews exploited blacks, and the blacks were buffoons, preachers, criminals, whores, or fools. Most whites were dolts in his books. But Jews were the real villains.
The brawl scene is amazing writing, great stuff.
Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson are black NYPD detectives featured in many of Himes stories. Theyre smart, wise, and vicious but you never learn much about them. They remind me of Cosmic Justice.
