![]() ![]() Trudier Harris, in her 1978 essay "The Eye as a Weapon in If Beale Street Could Talk," argues that the depiction of the Rivers family in the novel represents "the realization of the family relationship Baldwin has been struggling for years to portray." Critics noted that the novel felt like a natural evolution of themes that Baldwin had been working through for years. However, Beale Street was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection and bestseller, and positive contemporary reviews of Beale Street lauded it for the newness of its content. At the time, critics of Beale Street argued that the novel was an "unsatisfactory portrait of racial pride," and that Baldwin is "largely irrelevant in a post-integration world" (Brian Norman). The novel received ambivalent reviews following its publication, but in recent years its reputation has grown. It was published the year that Baldwin turned 50. If Beale Street Could Talkis James Baldwin's sixth novel, published on June 17, 1974. ![]()
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