A review by kn0tp0rk
Just Above My Head by James Baldwin

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

🔸Hall's brother, Arthur, has died in a men's restroom in a pub in England. Hall is having a hard time processing the grief. Images repeat in his mind, he can't cry. He remembers how much he loves his brother. He finally experiences any emotion by having sex with his wife, Ruth. 
🔸Hall's son, Tony, asks about his uncle, having hurt rumors that he was the f-slur. Hall tells Tony that Arthur loved many people, some of who were men. He says that he too has loved men. He tells Tony that Arthur can't be defined by those homophobic slurs. / I think it's really important here that Hall is not only truthful with Tony but also allows himself to be vulnerable. Not many people are willing to do that. 
🔸Arthur was a gospel singer, but his attraction to men was also loudly rumored. He had some notoriety because of this. / At least he wasn't also someone who screamed about how homosexuality was a sin. It's unfortunate that many gay Christians must choose to be silent about their love. It reminds me of Luther Vandross, for example.
🔸Julia was a popular child evangelist (age 7-14) among the Black community. She remembers a particular reverend who at one point decreed that wearing earrings was sinful, preventing an elderly patron from attending. She brought the woman to service anyway, and he didn't stop her because he needed her monetary assistance. / Funny how God's commands can bend when money is involved. Who is actually right and who is wrong? 
🔸Arthur tells Hall a story about how he was sexually assaulted by a man as a thirteen-year-old. Hall doesn't know what to say but is disappointed in himself. / Yeah, unfortunately, a lot of kids back then were harmed because people didn't understand how prevalent predators were in their own communities. 
🔸Hall recalls one of Julia's sermons. The church goes buckwild. Her family comes over to Hall's house and her mother slaps Jimmy like meat while visiting. Julia reports that God doesn't want them to stay for dinner, so they leave. / Julia seems like she's suffering from a mental disorder and her parents' religious beliefs are fueling her insanity. She was spewing total nonsense about David and Goliath during her sermon, but the patrons were eating it up. 
🔸Amy is fatally ill, but because of Julia's fierce religiosity, Joel stops taking her to the doctor in favor of Julia's fasting and prayer. It's not working. Florence berates Joel, Paul has a talk with him. / I wish I could say that we know faith healing is fraudulent and dangerous, but so many people DON'T know. They fall victim to it again and again. No amount of prayers ever healed any serious ailment I had when I was Christian, nor did it heal my loved ones' diseases and disorders. It makes me want to laugh when I'm told by people who've lost loved ones to cancer that my genetic disorders can be lifted by God. I can sympathize with Florence. I think she's wrong to say that beating Julia would have solved the problem. Domestic violence is never the answer. 
🔸Hall makes his first friend through this debacle in way of Sydney, the bartender at the bar Paul takes Joel to. / This was very wholesome. 
🔸Amy accosts Julia about lying to God. She passes away shortly after. This breaks Julia's faith. / Sometimes it sucks when you become an unbeliever this way. There's no end to critics who will say you're just angry at God and still think he's real.
🔸Julia tells Joel she doesn't want to preach anymore. He's vehement about this, attributing her response to temporary grief. When it seems that she's serious, he sexually assaults her. / Another reminder that for all their insistence, the religious have no better morals or self-control than nonbelievers. Sipping a little wine doesn't make ME want to sexually assault grieving children.
🔸Arthur and Crunch fall in love. They have sex. / I thought the romance was very wholesome, but I could have done without the sexual details particularly because Arthur is still 16 here and Crunch is 19. I think the relationship is fine because they've known each other, but I'm not comfortable reading sex scenes involving anyone under 18, I don't care what age of consent laws technically are, it creeps me out. I think it can be mentioned that the sexual encounter was meaningful to Arthur without the details of semen, etc. IDK, it's not like the scene went full porno or something, but hopefully, you can understand what I mean?
🔸Julia tells Crunch in not so many words, that her father has been sexually assaulting her. She asks Crunch to have sex with her and he does. She finds this meaningful, but Crunch is worried. / This is a scene I had more trouble with. As stated above Crunch is 19, but Julia is only 14 here. I really don't think Crunch had any idea what he was supposed to do, and neither did Julia, so I'm not comfortable pointing to Crunch and calling him a predator because I really don't think he is. I don't think having sex with Julia was the right move. The right move was something totally foreign and inaccessible to them: therapy. 
🔸Julia spends a night with the Montanas after revealing that she's having trouble with her father. She doesn't tell them it's sexual assault, is worried about staying, and just wants to entirely get out. When Arthur takes her home the next morning, they meet an intoxicated Joel, and he understands that Julia is really REALLY in a bad situation. / Victims of sexual assault often have a hard time saying what has really happened because not only are they traumatized, but culture demands their silence.
🔸Crunch tells Arthur about having had sex with Julia and Arthur feels his first pains of jealousy and confusion. 
🔸Joel's abuse of Julia finally gets her pregnant (though we're also told that it's Crunch's baby?), and he beats her within an inch of her life. She loses the baby. He seems totally incoherent regarding what has happened and doesn't face any serious repercussions. She's taken away from him. Everyone is shocked. / I mean, when you're raised within a culture that tells you not to just say what is really going on, this tracks. This is what happens. The victim dies or almost dies.
🔸Martha and Sydney have hooked up and Sydney has joined the Nation of Islam. Hall isn't entirely shocked but is a little overwhelmed. As is customary, Sydney will stop drinking and smoking. / Though the Nation of Islam isn't named specifically, I could tell from what Martha and Sydney were saying and Baldwin's own autobiographical work, that it wasn't just Islam. I find the Nation of Islam to be cultish in its ways--I have no love for the institution, not in the way they shunned Malcolm X or in their odd behavior with Louis Theroux. It demands obedience, yet offers the same vapid promises of any other religion. Many Blacks may have found it an easy transition because Allah is the same familiar YHWH from Christianity. White people aren't Satan robot half breeds, they're human-beings like us, and the racist ones are making decisions on their own--no supernatural force required. 
🔸Arthur is hurt by Crunch. Since returning from the Korean war, Crunch is reluctant to rekindle their relationship. It's not just war that has changed him, but the debacle concerning Julia, and perhaps the day's homophobic attitude. / It's sad to see someone who could benefit so much from therapy, not have access to it. Instead you watch them suffer or turn away so you don't suffer yourself. 
🔸While on tour down South, Arthur meets a girl who tells him how she wishes to be a teacher down South specifically, not in the North. She asks Arthur how many Black teachers he had and he realizes that he's only had a couple. / I went to school from 2001-2013 in Ohio and this still holds true. I never had a Black teacher. There was one at my elementary school and then she moved. I had a Black vice principal in middle school and my high school principal was Black, but teachers? No. 
🔸Everyone comments on how Birmingham, Alabama makes them uncomfortable. / We make incest jokes about Alabama today, but sundown towns still exist. Is Birmingham one of them? I don't know, but it used to be. It's scary living in a country where your fellow citizens can have so much hatred for you that you become afraid of certain cities. 
🔸While on the road, Peanut tells Arthur and Hall about his relationship with Red. After returning from the Korean war, Red acts distant and aggressive. It turns out, he's become addicted to heroin. Peanut recalls a significant sexual experience they had together as children, and details how hard it is for him to see Red come to such a dejected state. / It's no surprise that veterans are abandoned by the governments they fought for. Black veterans certainly had it tough during this time period. People turn to heroin because they are in pain, but it causes so much more. 
🔸Hall, Arthur, and Peanut are confronted by three white men who tell them, in their tactless fashion, to go back home. They get into a physical altercation, but the Black people living nearby come out to the street and save them. Their hosts tell Hall and co. that many of their phones have been tapped, that Hall, Arthur, and Peanut were probably anticipated. / I am once again thankful for the work of people like James Baldwin, that I do not have to live so horrifying a life. Racism is still alive, of course, there are many problems regarding racism that need fixing, but I don't have to deal with THIS. 
🔸While going to the outhouse, Peanut is kidnapped. He is never seen again. / This was also terrifying because of how true it was for so many people. You just get plucked from existence, probably in the cruelest way, and you are never found. Your loved ones get no closure. There's no justice.
🔸Hall reflects upon gospel music's poignancy in the Black community. He says the songs reflect a pain Black people in America have personally gone through due to slavery and racism, which is why Christianity is so appealing to them. / I can agree and sympathize with this. It's why I'm a minority of atheists who are Black American women. 
🔸While in France, Arthur hooks up with a white man named Guy. They're quickly enamored by each other. Guy tries to explain how he detests his roots. Arthur retorts that he is white to him all the same, that trying to distinguish oneself from the flock is nearly disrespectful. / I can agree with this. I don't particularly care for tales from white people about how their family is so racist and they're so embarrassed and yadda yadda. It is a sob story I'm uninterested in. Racism must be actively unlearned by all of us, and we don't get points for doing so.
🔸I will segue into saying that I do not like Baldwin's use of "oriental" to describe Asian features in people and things.
🔸I appreciate that several times throughout there is mention of involuntary reaction from the penis and confusion/fear in the character. Another reason I'm happy not to have a penis. A throbbing clitoris, while a stronger sensation, isn't always noticeable (not ever on me anyways LOL).
🔸Julia returns to New York from Abidjan. She talks to Hall and confesses profound respect and sisterly love. Hall is relieved to have Julia in his life. / I think this is wholesome. Too often men and women are told by society that they cannot be great friends, not even really in marriage. 
🔸Arthur and Jimmy become boyfriends. They are in the greatest love with each other. Hall and Julia are relieved. 
🔸When Hall gets involved with Ruth, who he later marries, he, she, Julia, Jimmy, and Arthur all come together as a wonderful family.
🔸As Hall finishes reflecting upon the trials of his life, his friends' lives, and Arthur's life, he discovers that Arthur was not murdered in the London pub, but died from a heart attack while descending the stairs.
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