The Rockpile
The Harlem family of Go Tell It on the Mountain, and a fight on a heap of rubble that a boy is forbidden to go near.
Going to Meet the Man
The only book of stories he wrote, containing "Sonny's Blues" and, at the end, a title story told from inside a white deputy's head.
- 1965
- 249
- Savage
- Melancholy
- voice-driven
- dark
- episodic
About James Baldwin
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeJames Baldwin's only collection of short stories, published by Dial Press in 1965. Eight stories written across seventeen years, the earliest from 1948 and the latest for the book itself. It contains "Sonny's Blues", the most widely anthologised thing he wrote, and closes with a title story narrated by a white Southern deputy sheriff. Around 250 pages.
The story, in more detail
The stories were not written as a set. "Previous Condition" dates from 1948, before he left for Paris; "The Outing" from 1951; "Sonny's Blues" appeared in Partisan Review in 1957 and "This Morning, This Evening, So Soon" in The Atlantic in 1960. Three were written for the collection.
Two of them come out of the same material as his first novel. "The Rockpile" and "The Outing" use the Harlem church family of Go Tell It on the Mountain, and readers of that book will recognise the household.
The title story is the outlier and the reason the collection is remembered as difficult. It is told from the point of view of Jesse, a white deputy sheriff, and moves from his impotence in bed to a childhood memory of a lynching his parents took him to see. Baldwin wrote it in the first person and gave the reader nowhere to stand outside it.
Themes and analysis
The sound that makes a life legible
The nightclub does not turn Sonny's suffering into a finished story of recovery. His first attempts at the piano falter, and Creole's listening helps him find a way into the performance. When the music finally reaches his brother, it carries memories of their parents and the narrator's dead daughter as well as Sonny's own struggle. Understanding grows through those shared losses, not through an explanation that settles them. The narrator recognizes the moment's limits: danger still waits outside. Listening becomes a form of companionship that cannot promise safety but can interrupt the isolation in which suffering has been endured.
Paris, on the eve of return
Before the return to America, reassurance becomes a form of family work. Harriet turns the father's breakfast irritability into a story about an artist's nerves, allowing Paul to recover his excitement and his father to apologize. Yet the narrator does not mistake her composure for ignorance. He later recognizes that she is learning from Louisa how to protect him and their son. The domestic conversation moves between affectionate joking and preparation for racial danger. That movement makes the family's closeness practical rather than merely comforting: love involves learning what another person has lived through and what may threaten them.
Why we recommend it
"Sonny's Blues" on its own is worth it
Two brothers, one a schoolteacher and one a pianist coming out of prison, and a last scene in a nightclub that does more with music than most novels manage.
The range is wider than the novels
Seventeen years of writing in one volume, from a rented room in 1948 to a Paris apartment to a Southern jail cell. The novels are more consistent; the stories cover more ground.
The title story is the argument in fiction
What Baldwin spent his essays saying about what racism does to the people who practise it, he does here from the inside of one of them, in the first person.
What this book explores
Inside the book
The Outing
A church excursion up the Hudson. First published in 1951, and the other story tied to his first novel.
The Man Child
A white farming family, a birthday, and the only story here with no Black characters in it.
Previous Condition
The earliest, from 1948: a young Black actor in a rented room he is about to be thrown out of.
Sonny's Blues
A schoolteacher and his younger brother, a jazz pianist just out of prison. Partisan Review, 1957, and the most anthologised thing Baldwin wrote.
This Morning, This Evening, So Soon
A Black American singer in Paris with his Swedish wife and their son, on the night before they sail for New York. The Atlantic, 1960.
Come Out the Wilderness
A woman in a Manhattan office, and the white man she lives with and is losing.
Going to Meet the Man
The title story, narrated by Jesse, a white deputy sheriff, and the hardest thing in the book.
Timeline
1948
"Previous Condition" is published, the year Baldwin leaves for Paris.
1951
"The Outing" appears.
1957
"Sonny's Blues" appears in Partisan Review.
1960
"This Morning, This Evening, So Soon" appears in The Atlantic.
1965
Dial Press publishes the eight stories as Going to Meet the Man, three of them new.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Dial Press
- 1965
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Michael Joseph
- 1965
- Paperback
- Vintage International
- 1995
- 9780679761792
Reader reviews
Readers may also like
Another Country
The novel from three years earlier, with the same New York and the same jazz in it.
Read our take
Going to Meet the Man: frequently asked questions
What is Going to Meet the Man?
James Baldwin's only book of short stories, published in 1965. It collects eight stories written between 1948 and 1965, including "Sonny's Blues", and takes its name from the last one, which is told from the point of view of a white deputy sheriff in the South.
Is "Sonny's Blues" in this book?
Yes. It first appeared in Partisan Review in 1957 and is collected here. It is about a Harlem schoolteacher and his younger brother, a jazz pianist recently out of prison, and it is the most frequently anthologised piece of Baldwin's fiction.
How many stories are in it?
Eight. Five had appeared previously in magazines, the earliest in 1948; three were written for the collection.
What is the title story about?
It is narrated by Jesse, a white deputy sheriff in a Southern town, and moves between his present — a night at home after a day spent jailing civil rights demonstrators — and a lynching his parents took him to see when he was a boy. Baldwin wrote it in the first person, from inside the man rather than about him, which is what makes it hard to read and why it closes the book.
Do the stories connect to his novels?
Two do. "The Rockpile" and "The Outing" use the same Harlem church family as Go Tell It on the Mountain, his first novel. The rest stand alone.
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document Going to Meet the Man, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1Sonny's Blues — university-hosted teaching scan
WebsiteSan José State University faculty readingsUsed forPrimary text for the added reading of the nightclub finale, printed pp. 44–48, with family-grief context on p. 37. The university-hosted scan does not identify its anthology edition; no full-collection collation is claimed.
2This Morning, This Evening, So Soon
PeriodicalThe Atlantic Monthly, September 1960, 1960Used forPrimary opening, pp. 34–37, for the added reading of Harriet's reassurance and preparations for America. The illustrated packing scene remains a literary reconstruction, not a verified literal scene.
3James Baldwin papers, 1936–1992 (Sc MG 936), finding aid
ArchiveSchomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public LibraryUsed forUsed to place Going to Meet the Man within James Baldwin's published work and verify its bibliographic context.
4Chicago Public Library — James Baldwin Biography
WebsiteUsed forUsed for independent biographical, archival, or historical context surrounding James Baldwin's career and the period in which Going to Meet the Man appeared.
5Baldwin in France
WebsiteNational Museum of African American History and CultureUsed forUsed to cross-check authorship, chronology, and the work's place in James Baldwin's wider catalogue.
6Baldwin, James Arthur
WebsiteThe Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford UniversityUsed forUsed to verify James Baldwin's bibliography and place Going to Meet the Man within the broader chronology of James Baldwin's career.
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Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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