In 1954, at the height of his fame, Richard Wright published a thriller with a white psychotic hero. The literary world did not approve according to Michael Gonzales from Crime Reads… Support our news coverage by subscribing to our Kindle Nation Daily Digest. Joining is free right now!
While Richard Wright was known as a “serious” author whose books on race, class and violence were published in hardcover editions, in his heart the Mississippi native was a hardboiled pulp writer who had no problem crafting criminal minded protagonists for the paperback market. A favorite Wright novel since I discovered it twenty-four years ago is the little-known Savage Holiday.
Utilizing a New York City locale, the psychological noir’s lead protagonist was based on the “extreme ambivalence toward women” diagnosed in two-time murderer Clinton Brewer. The slim book was quite different from any other of Wright’s published material with its urban existentialism that reminded me of more of his friend Albert Camus (The Stranger) than his friend Jean-Paul Sartre.
Savage Holiday was Wright’s singular novel that featured a majority white cast and took place on the moneyed streets of Upper East Side Manhattan. The book was conceived in November, 1952 when, according to biographer Hazel Rowley, Wright was suffering from a high fever. The following month, on Christmas Day, Wright began the actual writing, finished a 60,000-word first draft in January and a final rewrite on Easter (April 5th) Sunday, 1953.
Wright’s powerful literary agent Paul Reynolds Jr. thought the book was too dated and discouraged his author from submitting it. Later, the manuscript was rejected by Wright’s primary publisher Harper & Brothers and World Publishing Company also declined. Though no one expressed it outright, I believe the negative response was made because the primarily Caucasian characters signaled that Wright was drifting away from the ghetto where he could be contained to examine life beyond the boundaries of Blackness the gatekeepers were used to.
Savage Holiday wasn’t a book on “the race problem” in the way the writer usually communicated his ideas. Wright was more interested in being innovative and growing as a writer, rather than creating a repeat performance of Native Son or Black Boy.
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