''Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone'' is

James Baldwin James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; de ...

's fourth novel, first published in 1968.

Plot

Leo Proudhammer, an African-American actor who grew up in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...

and later moved into

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

, has a heart attack while on stage. This event creates the present tense setting for the novel, which is mostly narrated in retrospect, explaining each relationship with a story from the actor's life. Barbara, a white woman, and Leo, a black man, are artistic partners for life—sometimes sexual partners, sometimes not. Jerry, their white friend, was Barbara's partner for a while, before Barbara revealed her love for Leo. Their life stories are intertwined, but not joined, due both to the racial pressures of society and Leo's bisexuality. One of Leo's lovers, "Black Christopher", is a significant political and emotional figure in the novel. Christopher's friends are all African-American, and his life centers on the struggle for racial justice. Barbara and Christopher have one sexual encounter, but, like much of the sex in the book, it is exploratory, and only significant for what it reveals to each of them. Barbara, Leo, and Christopher remain friends throughout the novel. Caleb, Leo's brother, a

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

vet, was falsely imprisoned when he was a young man, and eventually conquers his anger at white society through his conversion to fundamentalist Christianity. He judges Leo harshly for choosing "the world" over "the kingdom of God". Caleb's religion painfully isolates him from Leo. Black Christopher, the foil for Caleb, advocates violent revolution as the means for creating a just society. Leo recovers from his heart attack and returns to the stage at the end of the novel.

Characters

*Leo Proudhammer, the protagonist, is an actor who grew up in

. *Leo's father *Caleb, Leo's brother. *Barbara, a white girl from

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

. *Jerry, a white man of Italian extraction. *Christopher, a young African-American activist.

Major themes

* Institutional racism *Incarceration as a means of preserving economic and racial inequality * White privilege *

Bisexuality Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one gender. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, whic ...

and sexual exploration *Impact of racism on military/civilian life in World War II * Fundamentalist Christianity *

Homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...

Racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

. Among other issues, the novel touches upon the mathematics of blood in racism. when Caleb Proudhammer says, "Our mama is almost white, but that don't make her white. You got to be all white to be white.".

Literary significance and criticism

Lynn O. Scott has observed that the novel has been unjustly dismissed, alongside Baldwin's other later novels ''

If Beale Street Could Talk ''If Beale Street Could Talk'' is a 1974 novel by American writer James Baldwin. His fifth novel (and 13th book overall), it is a love story set in Harlem in the early 1970s. The title is a reference to the 1916 W.C. Handy blues song "Beale S ...

'' and ''

Just Above My Head ''Just Above My Head'' is James Baldwin's sixth and last novel, first published in 1979. He wrote it in his house in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France. Plot introduction The novel tells the life story of a group of friends, from preaching in Harlem, ...

'', as less interesting and complex than Baldwin's earlier works. However, she argues that these novels build upon, revise, and refocus his previous considerations of racial and sexual identity in America by "exploring the sources of personal and cultural resistance to the pressures of a deforming context" rather than "mapping the experience of internalized racism and homophobia". Upon its publication the ''Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone'' received largely negative reviews. White male critics, such as Mario Puzo, tended to suggest that Baldwin's politics had compromised its literary merits. Puzo's review for the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', called the book "simpleminded" and argued that a "propaganda novel" cannot be called art. The "absolute inadequacy and overall misguided nature of this initial response" has been discussed by Scott, who observes that this contemporary critical reception reflects white Americans' decreasing sympathy with the

Civil Rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

during the late 1960s in the face of increasing militancy and assertions of Black Power, with which Baldwin was associated. Omari Weekes has, more recently, described ''Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone'' as "criminally underread", noting how the novel's descriptions of "the loneliness of being Black in a white room" and Leo Proudhammer's attempts to navigate being perceived as "too young, gifted and Black" continue to resonate strongly in the twenty-first century.

References

{{James Baldwin 1968 American novels Dial Press books Novels by James Baldwin Novels set in New York City Novels about actors Novels with gay themes Novels with bisexual themes 1960s LGBT novels Male bisexuality in fiction African-American novels