RUTH AYLETT admires the blunt honesty with which a woman’s experience is recorded, but detects the unexamined privilege that underlies it
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Misreading the activist
An exploration of Baldwin’s writing and travels that overlooks his political radicalism does no service to him or the movement says JENNY FARRELL
Baldwin
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Walking in the dark
Douglas Field, Manchester University Press, £16.99
Douglas Field’s Walking in the dark is a personal exploration, intertwining his life with the writings of James Baldwin. At the heart of this work lies a meditation on memory, history, fathers and sons, with the shadow of Alzheimer’s disease looming large.
Field’s preoccupation with Alzheimer’s, particularly through the lens of his father’s suffering, serves as a central theme in the book. Baldwin’s reflections on memory and history are brought into conversation with Field’s struggles to understand his father’s illness. However, one might question where Baldwin truly fits into this exploration. The connections between Baldwin’s writings on memory — especially his view that history is largely a record from the victor’s perspective — and Field’s personal narrative are somewhat tenuous.
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