Native Son

By: Richard Wright

Narrated by: Peter Francis James

Now an HBO Film!

"If one had to identify the single most influential shaping force in modern Black literary history, one would probably have to point to Wright and the publication of Native Son." (Henry Louis Gates Jr.)

Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic.

Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Richard Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.

©1993 Ellen Wright (P)2008 HarperCollins Publishers

Pay attention to this book

If the people of America had paid true attention to this book when it was published 75 years ago (many read it - a best seller) - I believe we would not have the ongoing human blights of racism, gender discrimination and increasingly gross economic division. It is beautifully narrated and exquisitely written. It is prophetic. Are we ready to listen, read, and pay attention in 2015?

Listen to this while you read Erasure

Try this for a great combo: Listen to Native Son as an audio book while simultaneously reading Percival Everett’s Erasure. Even though the books are set fifty years apart, and some things have changed profoundly in this country in the intervening years in terms of race relations, I was astounded at how much has not changed. The protagonists of the two books are both black men in America. Native Son’s Bigger Thomas is an uneducated, poor, thuggish young man trying to get by in the segregated Chicago of the 1940s. Erasure’s protagonist, Monk Ellison, (note to self: re-read Ellison’s Invisible Man next) is a current-day university professor from a wealthy family that gave him every advantage imaginable. Despite these surface differences, both men’s lives are severely limited by the strictures and expectations placed on them by their respective time periods. And although Native Son was overlong and preachy, I found that the injustices depicted in the book echoed in Erasure, as they do in the everyday lives of many Black Americans. African American males still have much higher rates of unemployment than any other group of Americans—worse even than the employment rate of white felons. Black males in America are less likely to graduate from high school, more likely to be arrested, and more likely to go to prison. Native Son lays these and other injustices bare . . . if only we could say we had erased these problems in the years since it was written.

read (listen to) this book

I feel weak and sad. Powerful and well written and performed. I'll be thinking about Bigger for a long time

The power of beliefs

This book illustrates the devastation and terror that comes from negative beliefs. Very raw conflicting and painful to read at some points. A chilling story of opposing view on race.

Awesome listen

I could see the way he clinched the weapon, felt the cold. What an amazing narration it was really, really awesome!

A true great

This book is a wonder and should be required reading. Read the book 1st then listen to it. Let the message of the novel filter into your consciousness. It’s worth it.

A literary but controversial masterpiece

Wright is an excellent writer. Native Son is a complicated story full of Wrights opinion about race in the 1940s. I can guess that Biggers behaviors scared people, especially whites who might feel that every Black person harbors anger and hatred enough to kill them in their sleep. I felt sad that there were no Black hero's in the story. Sadly this story could be written in a very similar way even today. I recommend this book but with caution. People should recognize the causes of this young man's disfunction and consider solutions that will end the deprivation that leads to it. These were no thrill killings. Hard to reconcile though. Wright clearly had an objective which he met through the extensive dialogic.

Dramatic events paint a stark racial landscape

I appreciated gaining some historical perspective on race relations through dynamic storytelling that painted a horrific picture with enticing foreshadowing of worse things to come in the narrative. I found myself wishing the female characters would be fuller, and less as props to tell Bigger's story so one-dimensionally, but I suppose this was a product of the time.

Great story

Great story. I was very excited about listening every day. I would highly recommend this book.

Section 253 is out of place.

Any additional comments?

There is a section, 253, that is very much out of place in the audio. It appears that those two or so pages of the text between 252 and 254 do not have an audio version.