LAWD TODAY!

Mr. Wright's posthumous novel was writter prior to Black Boy and Native Son. Although it never tries for the literary veneer of Black Boy nor the naked anger of Native Son, it stands up superbly well on two husky feet of wit and insight. In fact, it is so appealingly natural and full of high spirits, despite its Depression background, that it may well be thought by some readers to be his best novel and least slanted. The story is about one day in the life of Jake Jackson, a vigorously wife-beating Chicago postal clerk, and his three letter-handling cronies, all Negroes. Jake borrows a hundred dollars from a loan shark, just to treat his pals to a day on the town- Lincoln's birthday. Mr. Wright whips his bile so smoothly into the cream of his humor that most readers, Northern or Southern, will take the bitter with the butter and like it. A very fine minor novel this certainly is, the best Negro novel since Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and a work of more consistent artistry than even that fine book... A pity Mr. Wright hid this; and a greater pity he can't read the reviews he's sure to receive.