Walking in the dark (James Baldwin, my father, and me)

A moving exploration of the life and work of the celebrated American writer, blending biography and memoir with literary criticism.

Since James Baldwin’s death in 1987, his writing – including The Fire Next Time, one of the manifestos of the Civil Rights Movement, and Giovanni’s Room, a pioneering work of gay fiction – has only grown in relevance.

Douglas Field was introduced to Baldwin’s essays and novels by his father, who witnessed the writer’s debate with William F. Buckley at Cambridge University in 1965. In Walking in the dark, he embarks on a journey to unravel his life-long fascination and to understand why Baldwin continues to enthral us decades after his death.

Tracing Baldwin’s footsteps in France, the US and Switzerland, and digging into archives, Field paints an intimate portrait of the writer’s life and influence. At the same time, he offers a poignant account of coming to terms with his father’s Alzheimer’s disease. Interweaving Baldwin’s writings on family, illness, memory and place, Walking in the dark is an eloquent testament to the enduring power of great literature to illuminate our paths.