Chester Himes Introduction by Melvin Van Peebles
Yesterday Will Make You Cry
A classic restored—the complete and unexpurgated text of a great African-American writer's brutal and lyrical novel of prison life.
First published in reduced and bowdlerized form in 1952 as Cast the First Stone, Yesterday Will Make You Cry was Chester Himes's first, most powerful, and autobiographical novel. This Old School Books edition presents it for the first time precisely as Himes wrote it, a sardonic masterpiece of debasement and transfiguration in an American penitentiary and one of his most enduring literary achievements.
"Both a superior novel and a moving fictional record of the perseverance of humanity amidst unrelenting degradation."—Publishers Weekly
"Himes reveal[ed] the dark and twisted reality of life behind bars well before Gênet or Eddie Bunker. . . . Himes captures it all in his inimitable, far from pulpy, prose. A revelation."—Kirkus Reviews
"A textbook performance in which all of Himes's gifts come into play: the colorful characters, the ability to create a blunt reality without sacrificing an elegant style, and the trenchant commentary about blacks living in a society that is hostile to them."—Ishmael Reed
"Himes at the top of his game, literary as well as pulp sensibilities all rolled into one unique style. . . . Finally, here at last is the novel as Chester conceived it, the passionate story told for the first time as intended, and what an amazing book it is."—Melvin Van Peebles, from his Introduction
Chester Himes was the author of the legendary series of Harlem police procedurals starring the detectives Coffin Ed and Gravedigger Jones. His novel The End of a Primitive is available in a Norton/Old School Books edition. He died in 1984 in Alicante, Spain.
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