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A review by lesserjoke
The Man Who Lived Underground by Richard Wright
4.0
Among the more unexpected surprises of 2021 has been this publication of a new novel by Richard Wright, eighty years after it was rejected by publishers and made available only as a heavily-truncated short story. In this full version, it's a text as challenging and timeless / timely as one might imagine, especially in its early pages, when a young black man is arrested for a rape and murder he didn't commit, beaten and tortured by his police interrogators, and ultimately coerced into signing a false confession. It's not clear if the cops truly believe he's guilty, or whether that even matters. Similarly, once the protagonist manages to escape through an open manhole and begins to witness a surreal sequence of scenes that move with the logic of dreams and bear a distinct resemblance to some of his own recent experiences, it's possible that everything on display is simply the traumatic hallucination of an unreliable narrator.
In either interpretation, the events that follow are disturbing and reflective of the author's commitment to both present the horrors of racism in their totality and avoid reducing his heroes to blameless saints. Fred Daniels is no Bigger Thomas from Wright's famous Native Son, but as he loses his grip on his identity down in the sewers -- if indeed he does -- he finds himself culpable in similar crimes. It all adds up to the tragic end that seems inevitable as soon as the squad car first stops him, a bleak statement which plays out amid sinister apocalyptic vibes. There's no way of knowing how the title would have been received by critics and popular audiences back in the 1940s, but it's a tale well worth checking out now that we finally can.
[Content warning for suicide, gun violence, and slurs.]
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In either interpretation, the events that follow are disturbing and reflective of the author's commitment to both present the horrors of racism in their totality and avoid reducing his heroes to blameless saints. Fred Daniels is no Bigger Thomas from Wright's famous Native Son, but as he loses his grip on his identity down in the sewers -- if indeed he does -- he finds himself culpable in similar crimes. It all adds up to the tragic end that seems inevitable as soon as the squad car first stops him, a bleak statement which plays out amid sinister apocalyptic vibes. There's no way of knowing how the title would have been received by critics and popular audiences back in the 1940s, but it's a tale well worth checking out now that we finally can.
[Content warning for suicide, gun violence, and slurs.]
Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter