There is no more harsh indictment of racism in American literary circles than the marginalisation of Chester Himes.  Reading Himes’ work, with all its grimy and gritty brilliance, there is nothing but racial prejudice that can explain his absence from the classically accepted top table of American crime writing.

A Rage in Harlem is the opening salvo in Himes’ Grave Digger and Coffin Ed series, although it features the duo less heavily than his later works.  Himes was no great lover of the police; as a teenager he was chained upside down and beaten by them until he confessed to an armed robbery.  Unsurprisingly then, he struggled with casting policemen of any race as heroes, and indeed in this first offering Jones and Johnson are less heroic than in their subsequent appearances.  Himes casts them as hypocrites; they deplore violence, except when they themselves are dispensing it, and their commitment to justice is negligible.  In A Rage in Harlem, Grave Digger is motivated principally by revenge; there is little beyond their badges to distinguish the pair from rank and file Harlem villains.
The story follows Jackson, a hapless black Christian who has lost his life savings after a rudimentary counterfeiting attempt goes awry.  In addition, his girlfriend goes missing, and he finds himself wanted by the police for his part in the forgery.

Jackson is a newly arrived rural African-American, and earnestly religious.  As such, he is hopelessly naive and an easy target for the swindlers of Harlem.   For Himes, religion is not the liberating, empowering force of Dr King and the civil rights movement.  Instead, it is something of a vice, and is the food of confidence tricks.  Trusting, devout types are seen both as judgmental hypocrites and as ideal targets for con-artists.  Similarly, religious service is seen as the perfect front for fraud.

The debasing of religion adds to the sense of hopelessness which Himes creates.  The afterlife is cast as a pipe-dream for fools, but by the same coin this life is a dreary and vicious affair.  On this subject, Himes waxes poetic as well as any author inside or outside the genre –

Below the surface, in the murky waters of fetid tenements, a city of black people who are convulsed in desperate living, like the voracious churning of millions of hungry cannibal fish.  Blind mouths eating their own guts.  Stick in a hand and draw back a nub.

That is Harlem.

For all the horror and despair though, A Rage in Harlem is not afraid to throw in some humour –

Give yourself up to the Lord?  Jesus Christ man, what do you take the Lord for?  You have to go and give yourself up to the police.  The Lord won’t get you out of that kind of mess.

There are plentiful moments of black comedy, showing that while Himes was often given to didactic preaching, he still showed enough concern for the reader’s sensibilities to offer light relief along the way.

Perhaps he showed less concern for squeamish readers, however, and reading A Rage in Harlem in the 21st century, it is difficult to comprehend how shocking his material must have been for audiences in the late 1950s.  Among other acts of violence, Himes describes a brutal axe murder in lurid detail, and delights in discussing female sexuality.  Unlike that of other hardboiled titans such as Mickey Spillane, Himes’ work can still stand comparison with the graphic sex and violence of the modern era.

While most crime fiction draws order from chaos, ultimately aiming to tie loose ends and satisfy the reader, Himes does no such thing.  While individual mysteries may be solved, Himes leaves us in no doubt; there are not enough cops in the world to bring justice to Harlem.  Similarly, after nearly sixty years there has been nowhere near enough critical acclaim to do justice to Chester Himes.

Bookmark to