I'm not certain what critical works examining the career of
Chester Himes have been mentioned in this discussion aside
from James Sallis' biography and his earlier slim volume that
looked at Himes, Jim Thompson, etc. I am in the process of
packing up a great number of my books and came across four
others on Himes that I have collected through my years of
interest in him--all of which have some value and are worth
mentioning. Here they are:
CHESTER HIMES, A CRITICAL APRAISAL (University of Missouri
Press 1976) by Stephen F. Milliken
CHESTER HIMES by James Lundquist (Frederick Ungar Publishing
1976)
TWO GUNS FROM HARLEM, The Detective Fiction of Chester
Himes
(Bowling Green State University Popular Press 1989) by Robert
E. Skinner
CONVERSATIONS WITH CHESTER HIMES (University Press of
Mississippi 1995) edited by Michel Fabre and Robert E.
Skinner.
The last book is a collection of interviews (or portions of
interviews) conducted with Himes between 1955 and 1985. They
are fascinating, although they are not necessarily reliable
for details. For example, he says in one that he sold one
story to Esquire "but there were no others." In fact, he sold
eight stories to Esquire between 1934 and 1942.
Of interest here is his explanation of the origins of his two
detectives not mentioned in his autobiographical writings but
given in an interview: "...the two cops, Coffin Ed Johnson
and Grave Digger Jones, are roughly based on a black
lieutenant and his sergeant partner who worked the Central
Avenue ghetto in L.A. back in the 1940s."
Glancing through the books I was reminded that he was working
on Louis Bromfield's Malabar Farm around 1941. Bromfield had
won a Pulitzer for a long forgotten novel and was much in
demand as a writer of popular fiction and Hollywood
screenwriter. Today Bromfield's fiction is forgotten but his
later essays and books on sustainable agriculture were
remarkably ahead of their time and are still very
influential.
As James Sallis wrote in his biography it is hard to imagine
the very proud Chester Himes and his wife working as butler
and cook on Malabar Farm. But after his WPA position ended he
was passed over for other jobs that went to white applicants
and he and his wife had to sell their furniture for food. His
last hope was the job on the farm and Bromfield and Himes hit
it off.
Bromfield read Himes' original prison novel and according to
Himes "...became excited about it and wanted to get it
submitted to the movies." Bromfield paid for Himes and his
wife Jean to travel to Hollywood. Although nothing came of
the movie sale, getting to California did result in the
material for his first published novel.
Richard Moore
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