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.
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
Stories in its pages
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
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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.