Giovanni's Room
The same subject at a sixth of the length, with race removed and only two people in the room.
Read our take
Another Country
A jazz drummer dies in the first act, and the friends he leaves spend four hundred pages failing to explain it.
- 1962
- 436
- Savage
- Melancholy
- dark
- sensual
- voice-driven
About James Baldwin
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeJames Baldwin's third and longest novel, published by Dial Press in 1962. Rufus Scott, a Black jazz drummer in New York, begins a destructive affair with a white Southern woman called Leona and dies by suicide early in the book. The rest of the novel follows the people around him — his sister Ida, his friend Vivaldo, the married couple Cass and Richard, and the actor Eric, back from France — as they work through what his death exposed about all of them. Baldwin began it in Greenwich Village in 1948 and finished it in Istanbul fourteen years later.
The story, in more detail
Another Country took Baldwin longer than anything else he wrote, and travelled further. He started it in Greenwich Village in 1948, carried it to Paris, and finished it in Istanbul in 1962. It is his longest novel and the one in which he tried to put everything at once: race, sex between men, sex between men and women, marriage, money, jazz and New York.
It was reviewed badly by people whose opinion he valued. Time called it a failure. Norman Mailer called it abominably written. The New York Times took the other side, calling it a sad story brilliantly and fiercely told. New Orleans banned it as obscene, Australia's customs department blocked imports, and the FBI took an interest in Baldwin partly on its account.
It sold anyway, in numbers that surprised him. Baldwin's own reading of that was straightforward: a great many readers recognised the lives in it, whatever the reviewers said.
The full plot
Rufus Scott is a jazz drummer in New York, out of work and nearly out of money. He meets Leona, a white woman recently arrived from the South, at a club in Harlem, and they begin an affair that turns violent — he beats her, and she is eventually committed to a psychiatric hospital by her family. Rufus disappears from his friends for weeks. He resurfaces once, at his friend Vivaldo's, and then walks to the George Washington Bridge and jumps.
The rest of the novel belongs to the people he left. His sister Ida, a singer, begins a relationship with Vivaldo, a struggling white novelist who was Rufus's closest friend and who cannot stop asking himself what he failed to see. Their affair carries the weight of everything Rufus's death did not settle, and Ida is under no illusion about how the city treats them together.
Around them, Cass and Richard's marriage comes apart — Richard has finally published a successful novel and become someone Cass does not respect — and Eric, an actor who was once Rufus's lover, returns from the south of France, where he has been living with a young Frenchman called Yves. Eric sleeps with Cass, and then with Vivaldo, and the novel moves through those combinations without treating any of them as a scandal.
How it ends — spoilers ahead
The affairs surface. Richard learns about Cass and Eric; Ida tells Vivaldo, at length and without excusing herself, about the man she has been sleeping with to advance her singing career. Neither confession produces a resolution. Cass and Richard are left in a marriage that has been told the truth and does not know what to do with it.
Eric's Yves flies in from France at the very end, and the novel closes on him arriving at Idlewild and walking through the airport toward Eric. It is the one uncomplicated arrival in the book, and Baldwin gives it the last page.
Why we recommend it
He put everything in one book
Race, class, marriage, jazz, and desire between men and between men and women, all in the same four hundred pages. No other Baldwin novel attempts this range, and the strain of the attempt is part of what makes it worth reading.
Ida is his best character
Rufus's sister is the one person in the novel who is never fooled — about her lover, her career, or what New York is doing to them. Her long final confession to Vivaldo is the best writing in the book.
The reviews were wrong
It was dismissed as shapeless in 1962 and has outlasted most of what was praised that year. Anthony Burgess later put it among the best English-language novels since 1939.
What this book explores
The people in its pages
Rufus Scott
A Black jazz drummer in New York, out of work and out of money. He dies early, and the rest of the novel is what his death leaves behind.
Ida Scott
Rufus's younger sister, a singer, and the one person in the book who is never fooled — about her brother, her lover, or what the city is doing to them.
Vivaldo Moore
A struggling white novelist, Rufus's closest friend, and unable to stop asking himself what he failed to see in time.
Eric
An actor, once Rufus's lover, returning from the south of France. The only person in the novel the book allows to be more or less happy.
Cass
Married to Richard, and increasingly unable to respect the man his success has made him.
Richard
A novelist who has finally published something that sold. Cass's husband, and the person least changed by Rufus's death.
Bring it to book club
- Rufus dies eighty pages in. What does the novel gain by removing its most vivid character that early?
- Vivaldo believes he loved Rufus and failed him. Does the novel agree with him?
- Eric is the only character the book allows to be relatively happy. Why him?
Timeline
1948
Baldwin begins the novel in Greenwich Village, then leaves for Paris.
1962
He finishes the manuscript in Istanbul, and Dial Press publishes it.
1962
Time calls it a failure; Norman Mailer calls it abominably written; The New York Times calls it brilliantly and fiercely told.
1963
New Orleans bans the novel as obscene, and Australian customs blocks imports.
1992
Vintage International issues the paperback that is now the standard edition.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Dial Press
- 1962
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Michael Joseph
- 1963
- Paperback
- Vintage International
- 1992
- 9780679744719
Reader reviews
Readers may also like
Go Tell It on the Mountain
The Harlem this novel's characters escaped, written nine years earlier.
Read our take
Just Above My Head
The later, longer return to the same territory, with more forgiveness in it.
Read our takeAnother Country: frequently asked questions
What is Another Country about?
Rufus Scott, a fictional Black jazz drummer in New York, has a violent affair with a white Southern woman called Leona and dies by suicide early in the novel. The rest of the book follows his sister Ida, his friend Vivaldo, the married couple Cass and Richard, and the actor Eric as they work through what his death exposed about their own lives and about the city.
Why was Another Country banned?
For its sexual content, particularly the sex between men and the interracial relationships. New Orleans declared it obscene, Australia's Commonwealth Customs Department initially blocked imports, and the FBI cited it in its file on Baldwin.
How long is Another Country?
About 436 pages, which makes it Baldwin's longest novel after Just Above My Head. It is roughly three times the length of Giovanni's Room.
Where did James Baldwin write Another Country?
In three cities over fourteen years. He began it in Greenwich Village in 1948, worked on it in Paris through the 1950s, and finished it in Istanbul in 1962.
Should I read Another Country before the other novels?
Probably not. It is long, it moves between six main characters, and it argues with itself. Giovanni's Room or Go Tell It on the Mountain are easier entries; come to this one once you know you want more.
Is Another Country connected to the essay The Fire Next Time?
Not directly, but they were written in the same period and published a year apart, in 1962 and 1963. The novel works through the same material as private lives; the essay makes the public argument.