Outsider

by Richard Wright

Overview

From Richard Wright, one of the most powerful, acclaimed, and essential American authors of the twentieth century, comes a compelling story of one man's attempt to escape his past and start anew in Harlem.

Cross Damon is a man at odds with society and with himself—a man of superior intellect who hungers for peace but who brings terror and destruction wherever he goes. The Outsider is an important work of fiction that depicts American racism and its devastating consequences in raw and unflinching terms. Brilliantly imagined and frighteningly prescient, it is an epic exploration of the tragic roots of criminal behavior.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061450174
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	01/10/2023
Series:	P.S. Series
Pages:	672
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.51(d)

About the Author

Born in 1908 near Roxie, Mississippi, Richard Wright won international renown for his powerful and visceral depictions of the Black experience. The author of numerous works, he stands today as one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century. Black Boy and his novel Native Son are required reading in many high schools and colleges across the nation. Wright died in 1960 in Paris, France. 

 

Date of Birth:

September 4, 1908

Date of Death:

November 28, 1960

Place of Birth:

Near Natchez, Mississippi

Place of Death:

Paris, France

Education:

Smith-Robertson Junior High in Jackson, Mississippi (1925)

Read an Excerpt

The OutsiderBook OneDread

Dread is an alien power which lays hold of an individual, and yet one cannot tear oneself away, nor has a will to do so; for one fears what one desires.
— Kierkegaard

From an invisible February sky a shimmering curtain of snowflakes fluttered down upon Chicago. It was five o'clock in the morning and still dark. On a South Side street four masculine figures moved slowly forward shoulder to shoulder and the sound of their feet tramping and sloshing in the melting snow echoed loudly. The men were warmly dressed and wore mufflers about their throats. The brims of their hats, encrusted with snow, were pulled down at rakish tilts over their eyes. Behind turned-up overcoat collars their gruff voices exploded in jokes, laughter, and shouts. They jostled one another with rude affection and their hot breaths projected gusts of vapor on to the chilled morning air. One of the men threw out an arm and grabbed a companion about the neck and crooned:

"Booker, let me rest this tired old body on you, hunh?"

"Hell, naw! Stand on your own two big flat feet, Cross!" Booker, a short, black man protested with a laugh.

The man called Cross turned and flung his arm about the shoulders of a big, fat, black man and said, "Then how about you, Joe?"

"Look, Crossy, I'm tired too," Joe defended himself, shying off. "Why pick on me?"

"Cause you're soft as a mattress and can stand it," Cross explained.

"If you're cold, it's your own damn hard luck," Joe said. "You don't take care of yourself. Me, I ain't never cold. I know how come you're always so cold, Cross. You drink too much. Don't eatenough. Don't sleep. But, me . . . Ha-ha! I eat and sleep as much as I can. And my good old fat helps to keep me warm. Ain't that right, Pink?"

The man called Pink did not reply at once; he was reddish in color and older than the other three.

"Cross," Pink said seriously, "you ought to take some vitamins or something. Man, you couldn't be cold now. Hell, we just left that steamy Post Office twenty minutes ago."

Cross swiftly pulled the glove off his right hand and, grabbing Pink's shoulder, rammed his bare fingers down the collar of Pink's neck.

"How do they feel, Pink?" Cross demanded.

"Jeeesus! Your fingers're cold as snakes!" Pink gasped, his eyes lit with concern. "They ought to call you Mr. Death!"

"I just need some alcohol," Cross confessed grimly. "My old engine won't run without it."

"You better quit that bottle, Cross," Joe, the big, fat, black man warned. "When you start living on alcohol, you're traveling a road that ain't got no turning. You been hitting that bottle heavy for a month now. Better let up, boy."

The Outsider. Copyright (c) by Richard Wright . Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Editorial Reviews

“The Outsider is a prophetic book . . . a book people should ponder.” - New York Times
“Wright created in this fast-paced, riveting narrative...one of the most complex characters in African-American fiction: a black intellectual, freed of his past, who plays out the Sartrean belief that ‘Existence precedes essence.’ ” - Chicago Tribune Books
“The novel, which builds steadily to a clamorous denunciation of the rival totalitarianisms of Communism and Fascism, also offers a dire and accurate prediction of a worldwide revival of religious fundamentalism in response to the spiritual gloom spawned by these monoliths.... The Library of America decided to publish the final typescript of the novel as submitted by Wright. It restored all the passages pulled by the copyeditor, as well as his or her other changes.” - Alfred Kazin, New York Times Book Review
“It is in the description of action. . . that Mr. Wright excels, not merely because he can make the reader see but because he compels him to participate. There is not a murder in the book that the reader, at the moment of reading about it, does not feel that he would have committed under the same circumstances. Nor is the sense of participation limited to the dramatic scenes. . . . The expression of ideas becomes a form of action in which one is swept along. . . . [The Outsider] challenges the modern mind as it has rarely been challenged in fiction. ” - New York Times
“It is in the description of action. . . that Mr. Wright excels, not merely because he can make the reader see but because he compels him to participate. There is not a murder in the book that the reader, at the moment of reading about it, does not feel that he would have committed under the same circumstances. . . . [The Outsider] challenges the modern mind as it has rarely been challenged in fiction. ” - Granville Hicks, New York Times

From the Publisher