James Baldwin’s Sonny’s Blues

A close reading of James Baldwin’s short story ＂Sonny’s Blues＂ that provides insight into his life and ideas about art.

Tom 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.

Drawing on Baldwin’s book-length essay The Fire Next Time, 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.

Tom Jenks, Co-founder and editor of Narrative magazine

Tom Jenks is the co-founder and editor of Narrative Magazine. He is a former editor of Esquire, Gentlemen’s Quarterly, The Paris Review, and a senior editor at Scribners, where he edited Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden. With Raymond Carver, he edited American Short Story Masterpieces. His writing has appeared in Harper’s, Ploughshares, Vanity Fair, Esquire, The American Scholar, Five Points, the Los Angeles Times, 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.