Richard Wright

Some novels are engaging; others are gripping. Richard Wright's Native Son -- which must have landed like a bombshell when it was published in 1940 -- is firmly in that second category: the novel is a literary thriller; it's absolutely riveting. 

Part of what I found so exhilarating -- and so impressive -- about Native Son is its scope. This is a novel which reaches for it all: race relations, identity, reconciliation. All of these themes, and more, are at the heart of Wright's novel.

But instead of overwhelming, Native Son captivates. And this, I think, is an important distinction. Wright focuses on a single story, in a single city, in order to uncover grave injustice. Native May may take Bigger Thomas as its central character, but Thomas functions as a conduit through which American history -- in all its tragedy -- emerges. He is more than one man. 

Native Son is a novel, as Wright notes, about the "crime of being black." And it is. This is not a book primarily about murder or violence; it is one, instead, about ingrained racism, about systemic prejudice. When Bigger Thomas acts, his agency is limited by these conditions. 

There is so much to say about Native Son -- about its approach to metaphor, to whiteness, and gender -- and much, I'm sure, has been said about all of these things. 

At the end, though, I found this a masterful novel because, like others of comparable quality, it transmits a complex message using deceptively simple syntax. Native Son is equal parts triumph and tragedy. I can't remember the last novel I read which so firmly held my attention, and which engendered such consistent reflection on the American condition.