If Beale Street Could Talk (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: James Baldwin
- First Published: 1974
- Type of Plot: Realism
- Time of Work: The 1950’s
- Setting: New York City and San Juan, Puerto Rico
- Principal Characters: Clementine Rivers (Tish), Alonzo Hunt (Fonny), Ernestine Rivers (Sis), Sharon Rivers, Joseph Rivers (Joe), Frank Hunt, Alice Hunt
- Genres: Long fiction, Realism, Social realism
- Subjects: 1950’s, Family or family life, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Prisoners, Racism, Love or romance, New York City, Pregnancy, Rape, Theft, Puerto Rico or Puerto Ricans
- Locales: New York, NY, Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico
The Novel
In the opening scene of the novel, nineteen-year-old Clementine Rivers (Tish), sitting with phone in hand on one side of a solid glass barrier, tells twenty-two-year-old Alonzo Hunt (Fonny), who is in jail, and on the other side of the glass wall, that she is pregnant with his child. That she is unmarried does not bother Tish. She knows that she and Fonny had planned to marry, and had Fonny not been falsely accused of raping a Puerto Rican woman, they would have been wed.
The novel is divided into two parts. Part 1, “Troubled About My Soul,” constitutes...
[The entire page is 1927 words long]
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