God was everywhere, terrible, the living God; and so high, the song said, you couldn't get over Him; so low you couldn't get under Him; so wide you couldn't get around Him; but must come in at the door.
And she, she knew today that door; a living, wrathful gate. She knew through what fires the soul must crawl, and with what weeping one passed over.
James Baldwin’s first novel revolves around a black family in 1930s Harlem and, most especially, around the teenage boy of that family, John. He’s a young man bedeviled by his violent and erratic stepfather, the pastor of a storefront church, and torn between his own personal faith and his burgeoning homosexuality. Baldwin was himself raised by a violent minister stepfather and was himself gay, so it’s very easy to read this as an autobiographical novel. I think that sells it a bit short though because Baldwin is already a writer that is in real command of his craft and, while it does draw on details of Baldwin’s childhood and young adulthood, the characters are so richly drawn in their perspectives that there’s much more at work here.
The entire novel takes place over a 24-hour period as the family prepares for an overnight prayer meeting at the church and then, as the prayer meeting commences, through the prayers of the various characters we are taken through their lives and made to really understand them on deep and powerful levels. And by the time the prayer meeting is over, John has been “slain in the Spirit” and when he wakes from his spiritual ecstasy, he is a changed man in many ways. Perhaps he is finally a man in the first place. This book is multi-layered and challenging and it’s more than just a screed against religion or a demonization of even the most challenging and toxic of its characters. Even Gabriel, the abusive stepfather, is given a surprising amount of character development via flashbacks and if he never becomes a character we can really excuse, we feel like we can understand him in some way. Maybe it’s because of the deep layering of the characters that people are so divided on whether this book is largely an indictment of religion or largely a celebration of it. I tend to land on the indictment side of things, but some of the readings that emphasize the positivity of the ending are compelling and moving to me as well. It’s all part of Baldwin’s genius, even in his very first novel, that the book leaves you with so many things whirling around inside your head. Issues of religion, sexuality and race aren’t simple and Baldwin never approaches them as if they are.
I had some very minor issues with this book when I read it, most of them kind of very minimal versions of the typical “first novel” problems. I particularly found the final third which takes place during John’s spiritual trance, to not work as well as I wished it did. But I’ve turned around on some of that in the time since I initially read it and, in particular, my opinion on the very final scene has completely flipped. At the time, I thought it was rather anti-climactic; now I think it’s an incredibly powerful moment that I really haven’t been able to stop thinking about. So, ultimately, I don’t think I can even muster the energy to care about the few minor missteps I may (or may not) have seen here. Go Tell It On the Mountain is an astonishing novel by any standards, especially for a debut, and Baldwin remains one of America’s greatest writers. 4 stars.
tl;dr – Baldwin’s first novel explores religion, sexuality and race in that order and is a real knock-out; deeply layered characters, gorgeous writing and obvious passion make this one a masterpiece. 4 stars.
