Strivers Row audiobook

Kevin Baker is one of those gifted authors who recreates a time and place vividly as if his pen channels a movie camera-- Striver's Row is akin to a long cinematic prose poem about Harlem in the early 1940's. Arguably the most intriguing part of the novel is the portrayal of the early life of Malcolm Little (before he becomes Malcolm X) and how he gets caught up in the murky and edgy life of numbers running in 1940's Harlem. The parallel narrative concerns Jonah Dove, a fictional minister whose Christian faith is shaken by his personal shortcomings and the political realities of African Americans during this explosive period in history, with race riots comingling with America's entrance into World War II. Each protagonist's narrative briefly intersects with the other, but most memorable are the rich details of Harlem, leading us into old gin-joints and dance halls of the period, and Baker finds just the right rhythm and phrasing to paint the atmosphere of '40's swing music and culture such that the prose attains a kind of syncopated street beat, as close to the rhythm and spirit of jazz as pure narrative can achieve. Adding another layer of authenticity is the New York slang of the era, not overdone, but polishing the dialogue with an urban twang that resonates of a time and place otherwise preserved in the pages of Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks. Baker creates rich portrayals of true-to-life figures without resorting to cookie-cutter or newspaper-thin portrayals. Though the theme of racial struggle is clear enough, depicted in the separate worlds of Malcom X and Jonah Dove, yet it is difficult to tease out an overarching meaning or grand statement in these colorful pages of 1940's Harlem and New York. Yet, the prose is so moving and stirs up many fascinating images the work stands as a splendid addition to Baker's historical panoramas found in other novels that explore Fin-de-Siecle and early 20th Century America including Dreamland.

This is the third book in a triology;something I didn't realize until I got too far in reading this book. It basically takes you back to the earlier days when racisim was more prevelant and intergration was just a thought. Very enlighting story of the everyday people living in Harlem NY and it tells how it impacted the lives of poeple such as Malcolm X, Adam Clayton Powell and the High color Minister Jonah Dove. It took me months to read this book. Sometimes I felt like giving up 'cause there was so much details of each character in the book but I held out....

Certainly made me curious about Malcolm X. Sometimes difficult to read about the poor race relations in the USA in the 1940s and to realize that despite progress there is still a long way to go. The alternate points of view between "Red" and Jonah were interesting but I didn't totally understand why that was necessary and the connection between the two seemed contrived.

Read this as a stand alone and loved the way the early 20th century setting came to life. I didn't much care about Malcolm X as a young man leading a charmed life of evading criminal penalties and finding anything meaningful in a nutty cult, but it was understandable in the context of the times.

Strivers Row is a novel about the wholly fictitious Rev. Jonah Dove and a young Malcolm Little whose paths cross and recross during the summer of 1943. But the primary character is Harlem. Uptown New York. Small's Paradise. Servicemen - white and colored - on leave. Whores. Drug dealers. Adam Clayton Powell. Storefront churches. Strivers Row and Sugar Hill. And jazz.This is a big book and the CD production, read by Thomas Anthony Penny, does it justice with each of the 18 CDs beginning and ending with a plaintive saxophone setting the mood.There is violence and tenderness, kindness and betrayal. It is 1943 and there is a war going on - overseas and at home. White policemen, on horses and on motorcycles, patrol Harlem, together with MPs, protecting soldiers on leave from Harlem residents who increasingly resent their presence. And there are internal wars as both Jonah and Malcolm struggle to find racial pride - Jonah lightskinned enough to pass if he chooses, and Malcolm, after learning what he can't do in the white dominated world, wearing his zoot, hair conked, becoming Detroit Red. Strivers Row is a fast moving book, hard to stop. The CD version is such a treat for the senses, with rich use of slang, bits of songs, names of people and places. This is historical fiction at its best. The two characters. seeming opposites - the preacher and the hustler - provide both tension and balance.Jonah's father founded the New Jerusalem Church after leading a group of people out of the South, to New York during the Great Migration. The church grew and prospered under its charismatic leader. Jonah has done what he was supposed to do and has become the church's pastor, not entirely sure he wants to be a minister, believing he does not have the power of his father, still alive in his 90s. While Jonah struggles in his father's shadow, Malcolm struggles to become a man in the absence of his father. He is intelligent and charming but learns as a young boy that despite his abilities, his dream of becoming a lawyer is not possible. He leaves Michigan, first for Boston, and then, working as a dining car porter, arrives in Harlem. He works at Small's for a while, then runs numbers for West Indian Archie. He meets and believes he loves a white club singer. He smokes a lot of dope. And he is visited by a little brown man named Elijah who comes and goes mysteriously.I loved this book. I felt completely immersed in its world. Every character was fully drawn and believable. It is still hard to believe that Jonah never actually lived. And I have mixed feelings about Malcolm; author Kevin Baker has fictionalized the early years of Malcolm X, especially his interest in the Nation of Islam. This works as a piece of fiction, but I found it disconcerting that one of the two main characters was completely made up while the other was a real person, distorted.

A wonderfully-written historical novel set in Harlem during WWII. In vivid detail Baker tells the story of the dramatic early life of Malcolm X--depicting, among other things, his coming to terms with his mother's madness and his hustling in the vibrant underground world of wartime Harlem. I love the way that he interweaves Malcolm's narrative with Jonah's. Jonah is the reluctant heir to one of Harlem's historic black churches. Over the course of the novel he struggles with his call, with being a light-skinned black man who can pass for "white," and in his marriage to his seemingly perfect preacher's wife. By the end of the novel Jonah steps into his ministry and becomes a leading voice against racism and prejudice in a riot-torn Harlem. A very memorable read that has me thinking about how disenfranchised people fight back against systemic injustice. The edition I read also has a suggested walking tour in the back with notes Baker provides. Given how gentrified Harlem has become it's probably harder and harder to find very many traces of the great Harlem of the first half of the 20th century Baker re-imagines in his novel.

I think Kevin Baker is one of the finest writers of historical fiction I've ever encountered. He is both a great storyteller, and an astute historical researcher. One of the potential pitfalls of historical fiction is that it's all too easy for a writer to sacrifice story in order to accommodate all the fascinating and important facts that have surfaced in the course of research. Baker successfully avoids that trap in all three volumes of his City of Fire trilogy. He is able to weave an at times almost mystical, yet wholly credible, account of Harlem in the 1940s without, apparently, making anything up. I was prepared to find his idea of using the young Malcolm X (Malcolm Little, as he was known at the time) as a primary character to be too ambitious, and to fall flat; I was wrong. The character of Malcolm is very sensitively drawn, with a judicious mixture of bravado and naivete. Although the book stands on its own, it does have particularly strong ties to the first volume of the trilogy, Paradise Alley, which I would recommend reading first.

This historical novel is a fascinating read about Harlem and the people in it from the early 20th century to post WWII. A large part of the book is concerned with the different shades of skin of the African Americans and how they treated each other. One of the main characters is Malcolm Smith who later becomes Malcolm X. The other main character is a very light-skinned preacher - so light he is often mistaken for white. He wrestles with this and finally makes a decision. But the over-riding theme of the book is Harlem and what it was like through the different decades.This book would make a great HBO series!

This book is the 3rd of a historical fiction trilogy writted by Kevin Baker--I will add the other 2 soon. They all take place in New York City. This particular one takes place in Harlem during the time of Malcolm X (coinciding wonderfully with our recent victory!). I am actually listening to this book on CD (which I LOVE-I can actually get things done AND 'read'). I highly recommend this one along with the others.

Excellent historical novel about Harlem, "passing" and being black in the first half of the century, although it must be said that the author is a white man and the true experience can only be guessed at. The protagonist is narrowly based on the man who would become known as Malcolm X. Excellent writing.

The third of Baker's trilogy of novels about New York. This one tells the story of a Adam Clayton Powell character and of Malcom X. It's daring, and sometimes it feels like it looses it's focus. Anyone who loves The Autobiography of Malcom X ought to read this. All of his books are very well researched. A great read.

The riveting final installment in the acclaimed trilogy is set in Harlem during the summer of 1943. A chance encounter between Malcolm Little (later known as Malcolm X) and The Reverend Jonah Dove will change their lives, and eventually America itself.

I did not find this as good as Paradise Alley, a book I thought was fantastic, but I still found it interesting and well written. Kevin Baker seems to capture the Black American condition extremely well.