Shaming the Devil: Collected Short Stories

'Minutes and men'

G. Winston James explodes on the literary scene with a collection of short stories SHAMING THE DEVIL that introduces him as not only a writer of some of the most erotically charged fiction in the manner of Jean Genet, but also a writer so skilled in his craft that no matter the topic he is able to suffuse his stories with intelligence, challenging concepts, sophisticated imagery, and a way with idiomatic dialogue that is as fine as any being written today. Born in Jamaica and schooled in Brooklyn, James has the courage to take the African American experience into challenging territories - the particular milieu of the gay black male - and succeeds in not only sculpting very fine short stories that cover many aspect of his chosen subject but also in maintaining a high quality of craftsmanship in his in his mastery of the English language.

SHAMING THE DEVIL surveys the many dynamics of the African American male in the 'forbidden zone' of male sexual preference from childhood to adulthood. He skillfully opens his collection with 'Uncle', a subtle tale of awakening desires in a young child who focuses his safety of nebulous choice on a loving uncle: avoiding anything approaching inappropriate behavior between curious young Jake and his kind Uncle Paul, James allows us to feel the isolation of a child with different proclivities responding to a family unaccepting of anything but the established norm of behavior. It is a very tender and very intuitive examination of the sexual awakening of a small child. And from this beginning James moves us through the stages of growth that include abuse by peers, experimentation, arrests for seeking gratification in public areas and the humiliation associated with dropping the daytime successful role type to joining the lowlife in a jail and in addiction therapy ('Paraphilic behavior. ...what you do in here is tell the truth and shame the devil. Victimization starts and ends with abusing someone's trust. You want to build trust again. This is as good a place as any to start if you want to avoid recidivism. That's the only way you'll get your lives back on track.'), desire for dangerous liaisons that clouds the judgment of even the most stalwart men, and even the spectre of AIDS and the associated need to return to the family in the days before dying.

In one of the many exceptional stories, 'Church', James takes a character into a return to home situation that is planned to include a calling of the Church atmosphere for the irresponsible handling and castigation of young black men who have 'strayed' into same sex lifestyles. The manner in which he paints the atmosphere of this church together with the decisions he makes in communicating his emerging end of life loathing of a world that has not supported him, altered by the presence of the congregation and the spirit of the sanctuary is one of the finer portraits of the importance of the Church in the African American life. 'The Church was a venue where you could witness the Black family defining itself: the faithful wife, the obedient young children, the disappearing older children and the often-absent husband.'

SHAMING THE DEVIL, then, introduces a very powerful writer who is capable of creating all of the aspects of same sex eroticism with equal amounts of desire and danger while using his rich vocabulary and polished skills as a writer to make his subject go far beyond simply sensationalized tales. Grady Harp