Will I love The Man Who Lived Underground?

The bleak opening chapters of police brutality will make anyone uncomfortable, especially those of us who have been unfairly accused or treated at one time or another. In this case, the illustration is extreme, so one feels it as if it is an alien planet where the novel takes place and not merely an alternative reality where it takes place.

Even so, there is no question Wright borrows from his own experiences of being falsely accused in painting a vivid portrait of race and injustice as well as his grandmother's world view as a Seventh-day Adventist. In Wright's reflective essay… show more.

I vividly remember reading Native Son in high school, and to this day it remains one of my favorites (as well as one of the best novels of the 20th Century).

So, when I heard a few years ago that Richard Wright’s lost-lost novella was going to be published nearly thirty years after his death, I picked up a copy. Wow. It’s the story of a Black man, accused of a crime he didn’t commit, who evades capture by (yes, as the title says) living underground in the sewers.

The survival aspects, including his ingenuity and the break-ins into buildings… show more.