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An Essay
by James Baldwin
From "the best essayist in this country" (The New York Times Book Review) comes an incisive book-length essay about racism in American movies that challenges the underlying assumptions in many of the films that have shaped our consciousness.
Baldwin's personal reflections on movies gathered here in a book-length essay are also an appraisal of American racial politics. Offering a look at racism in American movies and a vision of America's self-delusions and deceptions, Baldwin considers such films as In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and The Exorcist.
Here are our loves and hates, biases and cruelties, fears and ignorance reflected by the films that have entertained and shaped us. And here too is the stunning prose of a writer whose passion never diminished his struggle for equality, justice, and social change.
Which of the films that James Baldwin mentions are you familiar with? How has your opinion of these movies changed since reading The Devil Finds Work?
I suppose am aging myself to say that I saw In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and The Defiant One in the theatres as I was growing up. I didn't see as a young kid, living in a very white community, black people until my freshman year of college and then the person I met was a...
-Kassapa
Overall, what did you think of The Devil Finds Work?
I enjoyed reading Baldwin's insights and perspective not just on racism but on so many other societal aspects of the films and books in this collection of essays. And I loved his friendship with his teacher, 'Bill'. James Baldwin was so intelligent, so well read, and so hungry for knowledge…that ...
-Jennie_Reece
Have you read any of Baldwin’s other works? If so, which ones, and how does The Devil Finds Work compare?
I did a paper on James Baldwin in vollege in 1969. I read all of his works up until then…Giovannis Room really stood out. These books changed my life. The Devil Finds Work is definitely cimpaparive to his earlier works. I could hear his voice when i read it.
-Kathleen_M
How do you feel Baldwin’s readings of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and A Tale of Two Cities shaped his views?
James Baldwin as he matured, didn't like " Uncle Tom's Cabin". Here a black person is always saving a white person at their own expense, even until brutal rejection/punishment to death. Forgiving the person doing him harm, while doing the right thing with integrity and genuine care. Thus, Uncle T...
-Tonyia_R
The Devil Finds Work - As A Play
Laugh out loud funny!! Now I can't recommend anybody else. James Baldwin was very talented but definitely not eye candy.
-Joyce_Montague
What did you learn from The Devil Finds Work? What surprised you the most?
Everyone reacts to a film from their own point of view and from their individual experiences. The power of the cinema is to evoke emotional responses. I appreciated how James Baldwin shared his love, disappointments, anger and contradictory feelings about the movies he reviewed in this essay. I l...
-Lynne_Zolli
What impact do you believe Bill Miller had on Baldwin’s life? Is there someone who you can name that had a similar impact on your own?
It seems like Bill saw something remarkable and took the young James under her wing. I'm curious, @Margaret_S , how often do you find a pupil that really stands out? Do you treat them differently at all? As I was reading those sections I wondered if the type of relationship the two had would even...
-kim.kovacs
Is there another author whose style you find similar, or whose writing addresses themes comparable to those found in The Devil Finds Work?
Is there another author whose style you find similar, or whose writing addresses themes comparable to those found in The Devil Finds Work ? Also, the author's estate provided a Recommended Reading List (see below). Which of these have you read? Are there others you'd add? https://www.penguinrando...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? (3/20/2025)
I'm reading The Devil Finds Work by James Baldwin for the discussion later this week. Can't wait to read others's reactions!
-Joyce_Montague
About the The Devil Finds Work BookBrowse Discussion category
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"The best essayist in this country—a man whose power has always been in his reasoned, biting sarcasm; his insistence on removing layer by layer the hardened skin with which Americans shield themselves from their country." —The New York Times Book Review
"It will be hard for the reader to see these films in quite the same way again." —Christian Science Monitor
"He has taken the old subject of race and made it even more personal probing perhaps more deeply than ever before into American racial practices." —The Nation
"A provocative discussion." —Saturday Review
This information about The Devil Finds Work was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
James Baldwin (1924–1987) was a novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, appeared in 1953 to excellent reviews, and his essay collections Notes of a Native Son and The Fire Next Time were bestsellers that made him an influential figure in the growing civil rights movement. Baldwin spent much of his life in France, where he moved to escape the racism and homophobia of the United States. He died in France in 1987, a year after being made a Commander of the French Legion of Honor.
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