Another Country

By: James Baldwin

Narrated by: Dion Graham

Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

First published in 1962, this is an emotionally intense novel of love, hatred, race, and liberal America in the 1960s, taking on the then-taboo themes of interracial couples, bisexuality, and extramarital affairs. Set in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France, Another Country tells the story of the suicide of jazz-musician Rufus Scott and the friends who search for an understanding of his life and death, discovering uncomfortable truths about themselves along the way. Another Country is a work that is as powerful today as it was 40 years ago - and expertly narrated by Dion Graham.

©1990 Gloria Baldwin Karefa-Smart (P)2008 BBC Audiobooks America

True life takes

I have never read a book so chillingly close to the messiness of real life. Thought provoking, confronting reflections on the lives of people we see walking by everyday.
How complex love,friendship and hate.
Loved it.

Challenging Book

This book was such a challenge for me. I appreciated the issues that came up that were steeped in racism, sexuality, and identity. It was complicated and messy in the way that those 3 things always are. The thing that was hard for me was that the women characters were not real people. They were not three dimensional or complicated. They were mostly just a tool used to say something about the male characters. Most of the time, I wrestled with whether the characters were just hateful and thoughtless with women or if it was both them and the author. In the end, I have to believe the author was too. Baldwin is an important and talented author, but he seemed to have no understanding of women whatsoever, white or black.

Excellent !

It was interesting that although written fifty years ago, racial prejudices still remain the same

Brilliant character mosaic

Baldwin is a master of dialog. It is a discussion on power and love. It is well told through multiple characters with no one being the main character. I'm about to listen to it again so I can glean more meaning.

Read For College Coursework

I struggled to finish due to homosexual and bisexual content. Baldwin was a wonderful writer. His characters have many layers and great depth. The narrator is very good. His voice was warm, sensual, and emotional where needed.

Awesome Read

Great Narration. I was able to put myself right inside the story. I felt like I was a fly on the wall.

While I enjoyed the reading, I did struggle to finish. I wasn't in a hurry .

Powerful and sad

In this novel Baldwin presents a realistic portrait of artistic young people in New York in the early 1960s. The most compelling character, the tormented black musician Rufus, is alive for only the first portion of the book, yet he casts his shadow over everything. Baldwin shows how even well-meaning whites who try to create friendship or love across the racial barrier often have no idea of the emotional sorrow they are up against or the further sorrow they may inadvertently cause. This novel also explores the conflicts that can arise among a group of struggling artists when one of their number becomes successful. As well, the novel includes some frank but well-written sex scenes, including homosexual encounters. Some may find this novel overly dark and full of conflict. Certainly, it is not a light or cheerful book, but it is an important work.

A deeper look

This book was so much deeper than anything I’ve read recently. A profound look into not only relationships, but racial disparity and tensions included. It is sad, and tense and beautiful and honest. I enjoyed it a lot because of the openness and the expressed feelings of the characters...gay and straight, black and white. Be ready to have your eyes opened and to really listen.

Sex becomes political, Politics become eroticized

This is a novel about rage, lust, race, gender, sex, bodies, cosmopolitanism, anger, justice and injustice, and about that other country, Love. Although some of the politics here are a bit dated, and it does feel like this is just a combination of Baldwin’s other books, it’s all forgiven by its sheer potency in thought and emotion. Baldwin’s prose is as purple and wordy as ever (if not more) and there is some repetitiveness to his ideas, but they’re all so smart and well put its hard to fault him for this. The novel follows no real plot, it’s mostly about this small group of friends and acquaintances (Cass, Eric, Yves, Vivaldo, Ida, Richard, Ellis, Leona and, of course, Rufus, the center of the whole group), and all the love, anger, recentment, tension (erotic and political), between these people. It’s very much a NEW YORK novel, starting and ending in the shadow of this city (the first line is “He was facing Seventh Avenue, in Times Square” and the last line as well makes a direct reference to this city), and it dissects all the different types of relations between the genders, orientations and, of course, Black and white people. Is it pessimistic? A tad. But it’s also SO well written.

Just mind blowing

I don’t know where to start. This is a story of everything and everyone. That’s all.