The Man Who Lived Underground: The ‘gripping’ New York Times Bestseller

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Thanks to NetGalley and Library of America for a free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review. This book will be released on April 20, 2021. The Man Who Lived Underground is a powerful book one that will resonate with modern readers even though it was written in the early 1940s. I love Wright’s writing in this novel, he was so vivid in his descriptions especially his details of the underground world. Wright use of alliteration and anaphoras was exceptional. It worked, in its honesty and its clarity of purpose. I left the sewer Fred lived in without regret, without revulsion, and with the most horrified, profound acceptance of Fred as he was abused and neglected into being. Acceptance of his re-creation, transformation. In Memories of My Grandmother, an essay by Richard Wright (which was published alongside this book), he explains that The Man Who Lived Underground was inspired by his grandmother’s strong religious conviction.

The Man Who Lived Underground reminds us that any ‘greatest writers of the 20 th century’ list that doesn’t start and end with Richard Wright is laughable. It might very well be Wright’s most brilliantly crafted, and ominously foretelling, book.”— Kiese Laymon I was never going to compromise, because Wright had to compromise,” Laymon said. “And I know Wright didn’t want us to.” He stepped into the car and they shoved him into the seat; two of the policemen sat at either side of him and hooked their arms in his. Lawson got behind the steering wheel. But, strangely, the car did not start. He waited, alert but ready to obey. Fred repeatedly insists on his innocence and pleads to be let go so he can return to his pregnant wife, Rachel, but the beating continues and he eventually passes out. When Fred comes to, the cops beat him unconscious again. When he wakes up a second time, the district attorney is present. He tells Fred that he can see his wife if he signs a typed confession. “Yes, all he had to do was write his name and they would take him home, home to Rachel…. Elation seized him,” Wright tells us; “truly, he felt nothing important could come from his signing his name to that splash of white that danced before his eyes.” Though Fred finally agrees, he has been beaten too savagely to control his body: The DA has to take his hand and guide it so he can sign the paper. 12 In 1941, Richard Wright, fresh off the success of his novel “Native Son,” sent his editor the draft of a new book called “ The Man Who Lived Underground.”Anyone who's paid me any attention knows that I can be run off from continuing a read by child abuse, by use of the n-word, by cruelty to animals...the list goes on...and not a few unfriendlies are smirking in anticipation of taxing me with this book's abusive, rage-filled, n-word-bombing ethos...how can I give this five stars and still abandon ship with content warnings in other, arguably less offensive cases? Because Richard Wright never does a single thing to make the awfulness of PoV character Fred Daniels's world sensational. The author isn't kidding around, bedizening a story with nastiness to provoke a response. He is telling a story about how Othering a man will, over time, after many small and large blows and much deliberate infliction of every kind of pain, turn him in to the thing that he was not, did not want to be, and could not bear to know that he now was. He would go to the station, clear everything up, make a statement. What statement? He did not know. He was the statement, and since it was all so clear to him, surely he would, in one way or another, make it clear to others. 28

Three woman who join together to rent a large space along the beach in Los Angeles for their stores—a gift shop, a bakery, and a bookstore—become fast friends as they each experience the highs, and lows, of love. While Fred’s confusion highlights the thoroughness of his transformation, his attempts at communicating with others demonstrate the degree to which this change has isolated him. After seeing his appearance, he starts walking toward the police station. 27 Enthralling. . . . You could say that the book’s release now is timely, given that it contains an account of police torture. . . .But that feels false because Wright’s story would have been just as relevant if it had been released 10 years ago or 30, 50, or 80—when he composed it. . . .Maybe, then, it’s more accurate to think of The Man Who Lived Undergroundas timeless rather than timely.”— New Republic This is a summary for the novel The Man Who Lived Underground, which was published in 2021. (This is NOT a summary for the short story version of this which had previously been published.) Part OneIn a pandemic-ridden world where we are struggling to face our systemic racial inequalities and other incomprehensible things, The Man Who Lived Underground was almost a weirdly timely book. From his marginalization and unjust treatment at the hands of the police, to trying to understand the world in the face of tragedies, a lot of the sentiments and frustrations that the character expressed are easily translatable into present day. To me, this book was primarily about the demoralizing effect of police brutality, injustice and racism. The main character’s turn towards nihilism is likely relatable for those who have experienced similar things in their lives. Read it or Skip it? Rachel’s pregnancy offers Fred an unexpected escape. As he holds his wife in his arms under Murphy’s watchful eye, she goes into labor. The cops take her and Fred to the hospital, with Murphy keeping him in custody on the labor ward. But he leaves Fred briefly to go to the restroom. “At last he was alone,” Wright says; “at last that constant threat of nameless punishment was gone from him, for a little while.” In this moment of freedom, Fred makes his escape: He jumps out a window, runs down the street, and hides in the vestibule of an apartment building. But then he hears the sound of police sirens circling. “He had to leave; to remain meant risking capture and a renewal of torture.” Fred looks into the street and spots a half-open manhole. Seizing this small window of opportunity, he runs to it and descends into the sewers. 16 Somewhere within the fragments of Richard Wright's The Man Who Lived Underground is a publishable novel but in my view, it was with good reason that the book was only posthumously published, well more than a half century after the author's death. However, some clues as to the intended nature of the novel occur as a kind of epilogue in the author's commentary, "Memories of my Grandmother". Laymon, who rereleased his essay collection “ How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America” earlier this year, has also expressed frustration with the publishing industry and how his work has been treated. He sees hope in and gathers strength from Wright’s legacy.