Another Country
The previous novel, and the closest in method: a wide cast, New York, and desire that crosses every line the country draws.
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Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone
A famous Black actor collapses on stage and spends the novel working out how he got there.
- 1968
- Melancholy
- Savage
- voice-driven
- political
- dark
About James Baldwin
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeJames Baldwin's fourth novel, published by Dial Press in 1968. Leo Proudhammer, a Black actor at the top of his career, has a heart attack during a performance, and the book is the account he gives of his life while he recovers: Harlem, his brother Caleb, the years of poverty before the work came, a long relationship with a white actress called Barbara, and a younger Black activist called Christopher. It was received badly on publication and has been read more sympathetically since.
The story, in more detail
Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone arrived at a bad moment for Baldwin's standing. He had been the most listened-to Black writer in America for most of the 1960s, and by 1968 the audience had split: younger militants found him too conciliatory, and the readers who had made The Fire Next Time a bestseller found the newer work too angry.
The reviews were largely hostile. Mario Puzo, writing in The New York Times, called the book simpleminded and argued that a propaganda novel cannot be art. The judgement stuck for a long time. Later critics have read the reception differently — the scholar Lynn O. Scott has argued that it tracks white American impatience with the civil rights movement more than it tracks the book.
It has since been called criminally underread, and the parts that were dismissed as polemic in 1968 — Leo's calculation of what his fame costs him, the argument with Christopher about whether anything short of force will work — are the parts that have aged best.
The full plot
Leo Proudhammer collapses on stage in the middle of a performance and is taken to hospital with a serious heart attack. He is a celebrated actor, in his late thirties, and the novel is what he remembers while he is lying still.
He grew up poor in Harlem with an older brother, Caleb, whom he worshipped. Caleb was arrested for a crime he had not committed, served a long sentence, went to war, and came back a fundamentalist Christian who now disapproves of almost everything about Leo's life. The distance between the brothers is the novel's oldest wound.
Leo's route out was the theatre — years of workshops, bad jobs and no money before the parts came. Barbara, a white actress he met as a student, has been his closest ally and sometime lover for two decades, in a partnership that neither the profession nor the country has made easy. Christopher, a young Black activist, is the newer relationship, and the argument he brings with him about how change actually happens is the argument the novel takes most seriously.
How it ends — spoilers ahead
Leo recovers. He is told to slow down, and he goes back to work anyway, on the understanding that the career is the only thing he has built that is entirely his.
Nothing else resolves. Caleb remains a preacher who cannot approve of him, Barbara remains the person he is closest to and cannot marry, and Christopher's politics remain a live question the novel declines to settle. The last movement is Leo walking back on stage.
Why we recommend it
The cost of being the acceptable one
Leo has succeeded in a white profession and knows exactly what the success is worth and what it has required him to swallow. Baldwin was writing about a position he was in himself.
Two brothers, forty years apart
Caleb's wrongful imprisonment and his conversion afterwards give the novel its strongest thread, and the last conversations between the brothers are as good as anything Baldwin wrote about family.
It argues rather than concludes
Christopher's case for force and Leo's exhaustion are both given room, and the novel refuses to decide between them. That refusal is what got it called propaganda in 1968.
What this book explores
The people in its pages
Leo Proudhammer
The narrator. A Black actor at the top of his profession, flat on his back after a heart attack on stage, reviewing how he got there.
Caleb Proudhammer
Leo's older brother, worshipped in childhood. Imprisoned for a crime he did not commit, then a soldier, and now a preacher who disapproves of nearly everything about Leo.
Barbara
A white actress Leo met as a student, and his closest ally for two decades — a partnership neither the profession nor the country made easy.
Christopher
A young Black activist, and the newer attachment. The argument he brings about how change actually happens is the one the novel takes most seriously.
Also in the book
Jerry
A friend from Leo's years in the theatre before the work came.
Bring it to book club
- Leo tells the whole story from a hospital bed. What does the heart attack let him say that he could not have said standing up?
- Caleb comes back from prison and the war as a preacher who disapproves of his brother. Does the novel treat his faith seriously?
- Christopher argues that patience has achieved nothing. Where does the novel come down, if anywhere?
Timeline
1968
Dial Press publishes the novel.
1968
Mario Puzo reviews it in The New York Times, calling it simpleminded; most notices are hostile.
1998
Vintage International issues the paperback that is now the standard edition.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Dial Press
- 1968
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Michael Joseph
- 1968
- Paperback
- Vintage International
- 1998
- 9780375701894
Reader reviews
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Giovanni's Room
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Read our takeTell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone: frequently asked questions
What is Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone about?
Leo Proudhammer, a fictional Black actor at the height of his career, has a heart attack on stage and recalls his life while recovering: growing up poor in Harlem, his older brother Caleb's wrongful imprisonment, the years before the work came, and his relationships with a white actress called Barbara and a young Black activist called Christopher.
Why was the novel badly reviewed?
It was published in 1968, when Baldwin's standing had split — younger activists found him too moderate and his earlier readership found him too angry. Mario Puzo, in The New York Times, called it simpleminded and dismissed it as propaganda. Later critics have argued the reception says more about the moment than about the book.
Is Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone worth reading?
Yes, though not first. It is the least-read of Baldwin's six novels and has been called criminally underread by critics who have returned to it. Come to it after Giovanni's Room or Go Tell It on the Mountain.
Where does the title come from?
From the gospel and blues line "tell me how long the train's been gone." Baldwin took most of his titles from spirituals, hymns or scripture.
Is Leo Proudhammer based on James Baldwin?
Not literally — Baldwin was a writer, not an actor. But Leo's position is one Baldwin knew well: a Black artist celebrated by a white audience, distrusted by younger Black radicals, and privately unsure what the celebrity had cost him.