The Angry Ones (Old School Books) by John A. Williams


The Angry Ones (Old School Books)
Title : The Angry Ones (Old School Books)
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 0393314642
ISBN-10 : 9780393314649
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 175
Publication : First published January 1, 1960

The Angry Ones is a powerful story of the hidden and (unacknowledged) racism that faces an educated black man in the professional world and the painful truths that warp interracial sex. Steve Hill, a young black army officer, travels east from California to New York in search of a simple a secure job with a future. He lands a position as a publicity director for a vanity press, and his experiences soon rip the facade of hypocrisy and condescension from a liberal and superficially hip society with its own peculiar political and sexual agendas. Based on the author's own experiences,

The Angry Ones (Old School Books) Reviews

  • Thomas

    This John Williams deserves a renaissance of his work as much as the John Williams who wrote Stoner. I don't know why this author and book aren't better known.

    I first read this book 14 years ago, but my copy then was called One For New York.

    Steve Hill, a Black writer returns to New York in the 1950s after finding it impossible to get work in Los Angeles. Williams shows with amazing clarity how relentlessly difficult it was for Blacks to get jobs, housing, or just walk down the street. The only job related to Steve Hill's chosen field that he can find is working for a vanity press where they know they can underpay him to do a job that turns out to be more about perpetuating a con game on unsuspecting "authors" desperate to get their work into print.

    Embodied in Steve's boss, the inclusion of gay stereotypes of the day and the trope of the predatory gay man is kind of jarring to read in 2020, but it certainly does highlight the fact that white gay men don't always connect the dots between their own oppression and the oppression of others. (Not to mention Williams' own challenge at the time making the connection between his oppression and the oppression of gays. As much as inclusion of the gay boss makes that point, it doesn't necessarily feel like Williams' intentions in that regard were deliberate.)

    An emotional, enlightening slice of life in 1950s Manhattan. Well worth your time.

  • RK Byers

    "revolution" is chasing white women, i guess...

  • Bright Chike

    The book tells of racism in the North, which is usually not talked about as opposed to the south. Through the eye of the protagonist we see what life is was for an average educated man in Newyork city:interracial relationships, exploitations, and the culminating frustration that follows, which made him make some life changing decisions.

  • Rachel

    A window into a black man's life in NYC in the 1950s. It wasn't easy going.