Written by: Richard Wright
Firstline: My first lesson in how to live as a Negro came when I was quite small.
Why you should read this book: This collection features five short stories and one biographical essay written early in the author's career. These pieces all describe the inherent terror of the Jim Crow south and the way it victimized Black people in twentieth century America, with violence and murder featuring prominently among the arsenal of tools used by segregationists to enforce social control. These are dangerous, frightening stories about a zero-sum game that is always fixed in favor of the house, wonderfully written with deep insight and wisdom, but difficult to read in terms of the suffering of the characters.
Why you shouldn't read this book: There aren't really any happy endings and four of the stories have absolutely brutal endings.
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