{"product_id":"james-baldwins-sonnys-blues-9780192884244","title":"James Baldwin's Sonny's Blues","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eA close reading of James Baldwin's short story \"Sonny's Blues\" that provides insight into his life and ideas about art.\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eTom Jenks's reading of James Baldwin's \"Sonny's Blues\" follows a scene-by-scene, sometimes line-by-line, discussion of the pattern by which Baldwin indelibly writes \"Sonny's Blues\" into the consciousness of readers. It provides ongoing observations of the aesthetics underlying the particulars of the story, with references to Edward P. Jones (whose magnificent story \"All Aunt Hagar's Children\" bears a knowing relationship to \"Sonny's Blues,\") to Charlie Parker's music, and to Billie Holiday's \"Am I Blue?\" and John Coltrane's \"A Love Supreme\" as part of the musical progression Baldwin creates, and with attention to Baldwin's oratorical gifts and the biblical references in the story, to its time structure, characterizations, dramatic action, and, most of all, its totality of effect. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDrawing on Baldwin's book-length essay \u003cem\u003eThe Fire Next Time\u003c\/em\u003e, which Baldwin published a decade after the publication of the short story, Tom Jenks offers insight on some of the sources in Baldwin's life for \"Sonny's Blues\" and on the logic and passion by which life may be meaningfully transformed into art.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTom Jenks, \u003cem\u003eCo-founder and editor of Narrative\u003c\/em\u003e magazine \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eTom Jenks is the co-founder and editor of \u003cem\u003eNarrative\u003c\/em\u003e Magazine. He is a former editor of \u003cem\u003eEsquire, Gentlemen's Quarterly, The Paris Review\u003c\/em\u003e, and a senior editor at Scribners, where he edited Hemingway's \u003cem\u003eThe Garden of Eden\u003c\/em\u003e. With Raymond Carver, he edited \u003cem\u003eAmerican Short Story Masterpieces\u003c\/em\u003e. His writing has appeared in \u003cem\u003eHarper's, Ploughshares, Vanity Fair, Esquire, The American Scholar, Five Points\u003c\/em\u003e, the \u003cem\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/em\u003e, and elsewhere. He has given classes at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, the Creative Writing Programs at University of California, and Washington University in St. Louis.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Oxford University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50892660769042,"sku":"9780192884244","price":20.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_29c0b1f5-478a-49e6-b631-2c5d148a8e03.jpg?v=1738200753","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/james-baldwins-sonnys-blues-9780192884244","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}