Early life

Chester Himes was born in Jefferson City, Missouri, on July 29, 1909. He grew up in a middle-class home in Missouri. At the age of 12, his family moved to Pine Bluff, AR where his older brother was blinded during a chemistry experiment at school, and the financial and emotional costs brought the family down in the world. Chester's parents were Joseph Sandy Himes and Estelle Bomar Himes; his father was a peripatetic black college professor of industrial trades and his mother was a teacher at Scotia Seminary prior to marriage; the family eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. His parents' marriage was unhappy and eventually ended in divorce.

Prison and literary beginnings

Himes attended East High School in Cleveland. While he was a freshman at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, he was expelled for playing a prank. In late 1928 he was arrested and sentenced to jail and hard labor for 20 to 25 years for armed robbery and sent to Ohio Penitentiary. In prison, he wrote short stories and had them published in national magazines. Himes stated that writing in prison and being published was a way to earn respect from guards and fellow inmates, as well as avoid violence.

His first stories appeared in 1931 in The Bronzeman and, starting in 1934, in Esquire. His story To What Red Hell (published in Esquire in 1934) as well as to his novel Cast the First Stone - only much later republished unabridged as Yesterday Will Make You Cry (1998) dealt with the catastrophic 1930 prison fire Himes witnessed at Ohio Penitentiary in 1930.

In 1934 Himes was transferred to London Prison Farm and in April 1936 he was released on parole into his mother's custody. Following his release he worked at part time jobs and at the same time continued to write. During this period he came in touch with Langston Hughes who facilitated Himes's contacts with the world of literature and publishing.

In 1936 Himes married Jean Johnson.

First books

In the 1940s Himes spent time in Los Angeles, working as a screenwriter but also producing two novels, If He Hollers Let Him Go and The Lonely Crusade that charted the experiences of the wave of black in-migrants, drawn by the city's defense industries, and their dealings with the established black community, fellow workers, unions and management. He also provided an analysis of the Zoot Suit Riots for the Crisis, the magazine of the NAACP.

Mike Davis in Excavating the Future of Los Angeles, describes the prevalence of racism in Hollywood in the 40s and 50s, cites Himes' brief career as a screenwriter for Warner Brothers, terminated when Jack Warner heard about him and said "I don't want no gotdamned niggers on this lot." (Davies, City of Quartz, pg 43, Verso 2006). Himes later wrote in his autobiography:

Up to the age of thirty-one I had been hurt emotionally, spiritually and physically as much as thirty-one years can bear. I had lived in the South, I had fallen down an elevator shaft, I had been kicked out of college, I had served seven and one half years in prison, I had survived the humiliating last five years of Depression in Cleveland; and still I was entire, complete, functional; my mind was sharp, my reflexes were good, and I was not bitter. But under the mental corrosion of race prejudice in Los Angeles I became bitter and saturated with hate.

Emigration to France

By the 1950s Himes had decided to settle in France permanently, a country he liked in part due to his critical popularity there. In Paris, Himes was the contemporary of the political cartoonist, Oliver Harrington, and fellow writers, Richard Wright and James Baldwin.

Later life and death

In 1969 Himes moved to Moraira, Spain, where he died in 1984 from Parkinson's Disease.

Some regard Chester Himes as the literary equal of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Ishmael Reed says "[Himes] taught me the difference between a black detective and Sherlock Holmes" and it would be more than 30 years until another Black mystery writer, Walter Mosley and his Easy Rawlins and Mouse series, had even a similar effect. Ishmael Reed by SpringHimes was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African Americans. [1]

The first biographical treatment of Himes's life is "The Several Lives of Chester Himes," by long-time Himes scholars Edward Margolies and Michel Fabre, published in 1997 by University Press of Mississippi. Later, novelist and Himes scholar James Sallis published a more deeply detailed biography of Himes called Chester Himes: A Life (2000).

A detailed examination of Himes's writing and what has been written about him in both America and Europe can be found in "Chester Himes: An Annotated Primary and Secondary Bibliography" compiled by Michel Fabre, Robert E. Skinner, and Lester Sullivan (Greenwood Press, 1992).

Himes's novels encompassed many genres including the crime novel/mystery and political polemics, exploring racism in the United States.

Chester Himes wrote about African Americans in general, especially in two books that are concerned with labor relations and African American workplace issues. If He Hollers Let Him Go ... which contains many autobiographical elements ... is about a black shipyard worker in Los Angeles during World War II struggling against racism as well as his own violent reactions to racism. Lonely Crusade is a longer work that examines some of the same issues. Cast the First Stone is based on Himes's experiences in prison. It was Himes's first novel but was not published until about 10 years after it was written. One reason may have been Himes' unusually candid treatment ... for that time ... of a homosexual relationship.

Himes also wrote a series of Harlem Detective novels featuring Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones, New York City police detectives in Harlem. The novels feature a mordant emotional timbre and a fatalistic approach to street situations. Funeral homes are often part of the story, and funeral director H. Exodus Clay is a recurring character in these books.

The titles of the series include A Rage in Harlem, The Real Cool Killers, The Crazy Kill, All Shot Up, The Big Gold Dream, The Heat's On, Cotton Comes to Harlem, and Blind Man With A Pistol; all written in the period 1957-1969.

Cotton Comes to Harlem was made into a movie in 1970, which was set in that time period, rather than the earlier period of the original book. A sequel, Come Back, Charleston Blue was released in 1972. And For Love of Imabelle was made into a film under the title A Rage in Harlem in 1991.

Novels and stories

1. If He Hollers Let Him Go, 1945
2. Lonely Crusade, 1947
3. Cast the First Stone, 1952
4. The Third Generation, 1954
5. The End of a Primitive, 1955
6. For Love of Imabelle, alternate titles The Five-Cornered Square, A Rage in Harlem, 1957
7. The Real Cool Killers, 1959
8. The Crazy Kill, 1959
9. The Big Gold Dream, 1960
10. All Shot Up, 1960
11. Run Man Run, 1960
12. Pinktoes, 1961
13. The Heat's on, 1966
14. Cotton Comes to Harlem, 1965
15. Blind Man with a Pistol, 1969
16. Black on Black, 1973
17. A Case of Rape, 1980
18. The Collected Stories of Chester Himes, 1990
19. Plan B, 1993
20. Yesterday Will Make You Cry, 1998

Autobiographies

1. The Quality of Hurt (1973)
2. My Life of Absurdity (1976)

A useful companion to the two volumes of autobiography is "Conversations with Chester Himes", edited by Michel Fabre and Robert E. Skinner, published by University Press of Mississippi in 1995.