ME and MY HOUSE E and Y House
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MeJAMES and BALDWIN’S LAST DECADE IN FRANCE My House Magdalena J. Zaborowska ME AND MY HOUSE e and y House JAMES BALDWIN’S LAST DE CADE IN FRANCE Magdalena J. Zaborowska Durham and London © Magdalena J. Zaborowska All rights reserved Printed in the United States of Amer i ca on acid- free paper ∞ Designed by Amy Ruth Buchanan Typeset in Garamond Premier Pro and Meta by Westchester Publishing Ser vices Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Zaborowska, Magdalena J., author. Title: Me and my house : James Baldwin’s last de cade in France / Magdalena J. Zaborowska. Description: Durham : Duke University Press, . | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identi ers: (print) (ebook) (ebook) (hardcover : alk. paper) (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: : Baldwin, James, – . | Baldwin, James, – — Homes and haunts— France— Saint- Paul (Alpes- Maritimes) | Baldwin, James, – — Criticism and interpretation. Classi cation: . (ebook) | . (print) | /. — dc rec ord available at https:// lccn.loc . gov / Cover art: (top) Baldwin waving in front of his house. Photo by Walter Dallas. (bottom) Baldwin’s study as he le it. Both images from the documentary lm James Baldwin: e Price of the Ticket (); courtesy of Karen orsen, Douglas Dempsey, and the James Baldwin Proj ect. Duke University Press gratefully acknowledges the support of the University of Michigan, its College of Lit er a ture, Science, and the Arts, and the Departments of American Culture and Afroamerican and African Studies, which provided funds toward the publication of this book. To Gosia, Tracey, Sandra, and Paola And in memory of Evelyn Grendell Jordan, omas Jordan, Neil Lawrence Jr., Sedat Pakay, Radhouan Ben Amara, and Brenda Rein CONTENTS ix ABBREVIATIONS xi ACKNOWL EDGMENTS INTRODUCTION. If I Am a Part of the American House, and I Am Vitrines, Fragments, Reassembled Remnants CHAPTER . Foundations, Façades, and Faces rough the Glass Blackly, or Domesticating Claustrophobic Terror CHAPTER . Home Matter No House in the World, or Reading Transnational, Black Queer Domesticity in St. Paul- de- Vence CHAPTER . Life Material Haunted Houses and Welcome Tables, or e First Teacher, the Last Play, and Aectations of Disidentication CHAPTER . Building Meta phors “Sitting in the Strangest House I Have Ever Known,” or Black Heterotopias from Harlem to San Juan, to Paris, London, and Yonkers CHAPTER . Black Life Matters of Value Erasure, Overlay, Manipulation, or Archiving the Invisible House NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX ABBREVIATIONS “Architectural Digest Visits: James Baldwin” e Cross of Redemption e Evidence of ings Not Seen Giovanni’s Room If Beale Street Could Talk Just above My Head James Baldwin: e Last Interview and Other Conversations Little Man, Little Man: A Story of Childhood Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son No Name in the Street e Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonction – Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone ACKNOWL EDGMENTS Like humans, books thrive both in the solitude of intense labor and within dense networks of social relationships that nourish and shape them in equally impor tant, manifold ways. Me and My House villages reach from the United States to Poland, France, Turkey, and Italy, and they are populated by family and friends, colleagues and students, and all those who at one time or another oered assistance, wisdom, encouragement, and support, long- term and at the spur of the moment. ere have been so many kind people aiding this book on its way to fruition that I am afraid I cannot possibly name every one of them. Let me begin this list of thanks due by oering my deepest gratitude and appreciation to them all. At Duke University Press, Courtney Berger has been a model editor to work with and has patiently and gracefully encouraged this proj ect since we rst met. Her invaluable advice and guidance have helped it metamorphose into this nal version. I also owe enormous thanks to Sandra Korn and Christine Riggio, who have overseen its production and patiently withstood my creative crises concerning the nal choice of images, cover, and layout. I also thank the copyeditor, Christine Dahlin, and, especially, Duke Univer- sity Press’s anonymous readers, who provided sage advice and guidance as this proj ect took shape from proposal to nal manuscript. My former student, Dr. Annah MacKenzie, was the rst reader of the dras and helped me to format the earliest versions of chapters, oering much advice and encouragement over the whole pro cess. Dr. Danielle LaVague- Manty assisted with shaping the last dras as they went into production, Dr. Jennifer Solheim was invaluable in craing the index, while Janée Moses, Ph.D. candidate, helped with the bibliography. My many conversations with gradu ate students in American Culture and Afroamerican and African Studies, and my teaching of hundreds of undergraduates in both depart- ments, have deeply enriched my thinking on this proj ect. I also thank all my Ph.D. advisees— and especially Jallicia Jolly and Katie Leonard— whose enthusiasm and love of lit er a ture have given me daily boosts of energy, and especially warmly Dahlia Petrus, who assisted with teaching and learning to navigate the digital realm, not to mention providing references to the cool- est lms, documentaries, and scholarship I am counting on receiving well beyond this proj ect. Institutional support at the University of Michigan’s College of Lit er a- ture, Science, and the Arts has been steadfast and generous ever since I joined it: from funds to help with the publication of this book, summer writing grants in and , and a Michigan Humanities Award that secured time for me to work on this proj ect, through the Rackham School of Gradu ate Studies and my home departments of American Culture and Afroamerican and African Studies, which have given plentiful, reliable, and warm sta support as well as travel and research funding, to the Institute for the Humanities, and its past directors, Danny Herwitz and Sid Smith, where the idea for Me and My House rst took shape during a fellowship year. I also wholeheartedly thank my departmental chairs and colleagues, as well as those in other units, who have encouraged my work, and whose scholarship, mentorship, collegiality, and intellectual powers have nurtured and strengthened my own: Profs. Sandra Gunning, Frieda Ekotto, Evelyn Alsultany, Alan Wald, June Howard, Fernando Arenas, Paul Johnson, Larry La Fountain- Stokes, Sara Blair, Abby Stewart, Marianetta Porter, and Mary Kelley. While I rst envisaged and then painstakingly researched this proj ect, David and Pamela Leeming, Sedat and Kathy Pakay, Karen orsen and Douglas Dempsey, and Jill Hutchinson and her daughter Leonore have been reliable friends, supporters, and sources of unique information on and beau- tiful images of Baldwin, his life, family, and dwellings without which this book would be much poorer. eir pioneering repre sen ta tions and brave preservation of Baldwin’s legacy as biographers, documentary lmmakers, and erce guardians of his house archive continue to inspire and enlighten me. Aisha Karefa- Smart, Helen Baldwin, and Trevor Baldwin were generous in sharing the memories of their brother- in- law and uncle, as were Lynn Orilla Scott, Ken Win eld, Nikki Giovanni, Nicholas Delbanco, Roberta Uno, Pitou Roux, and Hélène Roux Jeandheur, who let me interview them for this proj ect, oering moving personal accounts of their connections to Jimmy and his life in the United States and France. e late Lucien Happers berger, whom I interviewed in , will always remain in my mind as an indefati- gable interlocutor; I thank Prof. Boris Vejdovsky of Université de Lausanne for facilitating our meeting. Scholars at numerous academic institutions and members of the world- wide Baldwin fellowship have chaperoned other publications of mine along xii the way, and all have been invaluable teachers and interlocutors over the years, especially Profs. Lynn Orilla Scott, Michele and Harry Elam, Nigel Hat- ton, Ed Pavlić, Douglas Field, Nicholas Boggs, Quentin Miller, E. Patrick Johnson, Brian Norman, Justin Joyce, John Drabinski, Pekka Kilpeläinen, Robert Reid- Pharr, Ernest Gibson, Bill Schwartz, Cora Kaplan, Jacquelyn Goldsby, Dwight McBride, Cheryl Wall, and Violet Johnson. Prof. Paola Boi Pisano of University of Cagliari in Italy and Prof. Claudine Reynaud of Université Paul Valéry in Montpellier, France, enabled summer research support as well as rich intellectual environments during key phases of archi- val work, while Dr. Tulani Salahu- Din at the National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian has been a revelation in terms of her support for the Baldwin archives and encouragement toward my future proj ect to construct a digital James Baldwin house- museum. I dedicate this proj ect to my sisters by blood and long- term friendship— Gosia Zaborowska, Tracey Rizzo, Sandra Gunning, and Paola Boi Pisano. ey have been there for me whenever tough times came, and there were many, given that I was diagnosed with a disabling chronic illness while work- ing on this book. Like them, several family members and dear friends who have passed on during the last few years, and whose vision of home and literal hospitality in the homes of their own have helped me grow as a human being and push my work along, are the ones to whom I dedicate this proj ect. Lastly, and most of all, my son, Cazmir omas-Jordan Zaborowska, de- serves the most singular gratitude. Born while I labored on my rst book on Baldwin in Turkey, he has bravely helped me with archival research in France since the age of thirteen and cheered my writing on steadfastly, es- pecially whenever my health and stamina fail me. His courage, intelligence, perseverance, beauty, and loving support make my every day a prize and our life together the best home in the world.