Go Tell It on the Mountain

Literary fiction · Tragedy

First published: 1993
Print length: 226 pagesVintage International, 2013

Description

James Baldwin’s novel follows John Grimes, an intelligent teenager in 1930s Harlem, over one Saturday in March 1935. The stepson of Gabriel, a violent storefront Pentecostal minister, John struggles to discover the terms of his identity through spiritual, sexual, and moral self-examination. The narrative also explores his family history, including his mother and biological father, while connecting their lives to the Great Migration. Baldwin portrays the Pentecostal Church as both a source of repression and hypocrisy and a source of community and inspiration. Drawing heavily on his own Harlem childhood, he joins John’s inner conflict to a broader Black family experience.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Dense · Lyrical · Poetic · Stream of consciousness

Pace

Measured

Tone

Dark · Earnest · Intimate · Reflective

Structure

Multiple timelines · Nonlinear

Focus

Character · Ideas · Relationships

Emotional intensity

5 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 4 / 5
Ideas: 4 / 5
Structure: 4 / 5
Background knowledge: 2 / 5

Themes

Coming of ageFamilyIdentityRace and racismReligion and faithSexuality

About James Baldwin

James Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and civil rights activist whose work places private conflict under the pressure of race, religion, sexuality, and family life. His essays move between personal testimony and sustained argument, using memory and cultural criticism to show how public ideas enter intimate relations. In The Fire Next Time, a letter to his nephew expands into an examination of American racial history, while recollections of Harlem churches and the Nation of Islam sharpen his account of race and faith. His fiction is often dense and lyrical, with shifts into memory and interior reflection that widen a concentrated crisis. Go Tell It on the Mountain confines its present action largely to one day, then opens John Grimes’s spiritual and sexual struggle onto his family’s history. Giovanni’s Room uses a more tightly enclosed drama. David’s affair in Paris unfolds through self-scrutiny, evasion, and the claustrophobic setting of Giovanni’s room. Baldwin repeatedly joins social analysis to the unstable stories people tell about themselves.

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Vintage International
Language: English
ISBN: 9780375701870

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