Just Above My Head

Description: 'This is the work of a born storyteller at the height of his powers' Edmund White, Washington Post
When Arthur Montana, world-renowned 'Emperor of Soul', is found dead in a London pub, his grief-stricken brother looks back over thirty years in the lives of their group of friends: from their childhood spent preaching and singing in Harlem churches, to their struggles with war and poverty, and their encounters with wealth, love and fame.
Set against a vividly drawn background of the civil rights movement of the sixties, Baldwin's last novel is a monumental saga that ranges from New York to Paris, Korea to Africa to portray how profoundly racial politics can shape life, especially in the private business of love.
'Warm, melancholy . . . Hall Montana's voice is the conduit for Baldwin's most distinctive quality as a writer, his abundant tenderness' The New York Times

Review: The best of his work ... stands comparison with any of its period to come out of the United States * The Times *
This is the work of a born storyteller at the height of his powers -- Edmund White * Washington Post *
If Van Gogh was our 19th-century artist-saint, James Baldwin is our 20th-century one -- Michael Ondaatje
Baldwin is one of the few genuinely indispensable American writers
* Saturday Review *

Author Biography: Born in Harlem in 1924, James Baldwin was a novelist, essayist, play wright, poet, social critic, and the author of more than twenty books. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, appeared in 1953 to excellent reviews, and his essay col lection The Fire Next Time was a bestseller that made him an influential figure in the civil rights movement. Baldwin spent many years in France, where he moved to escape the racism and homophobia of the United States. He died in 1987.