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The Devil Finds Work: An Essay Audiobook
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Publisher Description
Baldwin’s personal reflections on movies gathered here in a book-length essay are also a probing appraisal of American racial politics.
Offering an incisive look at racism in American movies and a vision of America’s self-delusions and deceptions, Baldwin challenges the underlying assumptions in such films as In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and The Exorcist.
Here are our loves and hates, biases and cruelties, fears and ignorance reflected by the films that have entertained us and shaped our consciousness. And here too is the stunning prose of a writer whose passion never diminished his struggle for equality, justice, and social change.
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“Graham is the quintessential voice for Baldwin’s words…In this smoothly produced recording, listeners are allowed time to absorb the intricate ideas due to Baldwin’s thoughtful placement of punctuation and Graham’s mindful use of natural pauses. Graham’s sonorous tones are also an ideal match for these powerful essays on race, class, and gender in American film. A worthy addition to any public library’s audiobook collection…Consider placing this in a comprehensive film collection as well.“
— Booklist (audio review)
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“The best essayist in this country—a man whose power has always been in his reasoned, biting sarcasm, his insistence on removing layer by layer the hardened skin with which Americans shield themselves from their country.”
— New York Times Book Review -
“[Baldwin] has taken the old subject of race and made it even more personal, probing perhaps more deeply than ever before into American racial practices.”
— Nation -
“A provocative discussion.”
— Saturday Review -
“It will be hard for the reader to see these films in quite the same way again.”
— Christian Science Monitor
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About James Baldwin
James Baldwin (1924–1987), acclaimed New York Times bestselling author, was educated in New York. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, received excellent reviews and was immediately recognized as establishing a profound and permanent new voice in American letters. The appearance of The Fire Next Time in 1963, just as the civil rights movement was exploding across the American South, galvanized the nation and continues to reverberate as perhaps the most prophetic and defining statement ever written of the continuing costs of Americans’ refusal to face their own history. It became a national bestseller, and Baldwin was featured on the cover of Time. The next year, he was made a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and collaborated with the photographer Richard Avedon on Nothing Personal, a series of portraits of America intended as a eulogy for the slain Medger Evers. His other collaborations include A Rap on Race with Margaret Mead and A Dialogue with the poet–activist Nikki Giovanni. He also adapted Alex Haley’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X into One Day When I Was Lost. He was made a commander of the French Legion of Honor a year before his death, one honor among many he achieved in his life.
About Dion Graham
Dion Graham is an award-winning narrator named a “Golden Voice” by AudioFile magazine. He has been a recipient of the prestigious Audie Award numerous times, as well as Earphones Awards, the Publishers Weekly Listen Up Awards, IBPA Ben Franklin Awards, and the ALA Odyssey Award. He was nominated in 2015 for a Voice Arts Award for Outstanding Narration. He is also a critically acclaimed actor who has performed on Broadway, off Broadway, internationally, in films, and in several hit television series. He is a graduate of Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts, with an MFA degree in acting.