The Man Who Cried I Am Explained

Italic Title:The Man Who Cried I Am
Author:John A. Williams
Country:United States
Language:English
Publisher:Little, Brown and Company
Pages:403
Preceded By:This Is My Country Too
Followed By:Sons of Darkness, Sons of Light

The Man Who Cried I Am, first published in 1967 by Little, Brown and Company, is the fourth novel by the American author John A. Williams. The novel tells the story of Max Reddick, a black novelist and journalist, who looks back on his private and professional life and learns of a secret and genocidal plan made by the U.S. government.

Williams dedicated the book to his wife Lorrain Isaac.

Plot summary

In May 1964, Max Reddick, a black American journalist and novelist, sees his Dutch wife Margrit Westoever back in Amsterdam. Margrit returned to the Netherlands the year before to escape the tensions in their marriage. Max knows he has cancer and has quit his job. He has just returned from Paris where he attended the funeral of his friend, the famous black writer Harry Ames. Due to his critical views of America, Harry had been placed under surveillance by the security services. Accidentally Max sees that Alfonse Edwards, a black American civil servant he knows from the time when he was a correspondent in Nigeria, is also in Amsterdam.

Max wonders what Edwards is doing in the Netherlands. He was also present at Harry's funeral and said that Harry had suddenly died on the street in his company. Max receives a call from Michelle Bouilloux, a French woman with whom Harry had an extramarital affair, who says she is coming to the Netherlands for something important. She wants to see Max in Leiden the next day. Max and Margrit visit Roger Wilkinson, a black American writer who lives in Amsterdam. Max asks Roger if he knows what Edwards is doing in town, but Roger says he doesn't know.

The next day, Max travels to Leiden and remembers the time when his first book came out and he got to know Harry and how he had shaped his view of literature. Max reflects on the varying success of his novels and how that affected his relationship with Harry, the secret affair he had with Harry's wife Charlotte and their departure to Paris to escape the racism and hypocrisy in America. Max also thinks back to the Second World War, when he fought in Italy, and the difficulty he had after the war in finding work as a black journalist. His time as a speechwriter in the White House had ended in disappointment. He had subsequently been a correspondent in Africa and married Margrit, but rising race tensions in America affected their relationship, causing Margrit to return to the Netherlands.

In Leiden, Michelle Bouilloux hands Max a briefcase with documents from Harry. Max reads about a secret organization of Western governments to thwart the development of African countries as much as possible. It turns out that the American government developed a secret plan called the King Alfred Plan. It implies that the black minority could be interned and exterminated. A Nigerian politician who knew Harry had accidentally discovered the existence of the plan and, as a precaution, had passed on the information to him. The politician was later found dead.

Max realizes that Harry has been killed by Alfonse Edwards and that he himself is also in danger. Max calls the well-known black Muslim leader Minister Q and passes on the information about the King Alfred Plan so that Minister Q can initiate an uprising. The telephone conversation is tapped by the authorities who decide to get rid of Minister Q. On the way back to Amsterdam, Max is attacked by Alfonse Edwards and Roger Wilkinson and dies.

Characters

Background

It has been suggested that The Man Who Cried I Am is a roman à clef. John A. Williams admitted that he based certain characters in the novel on real people. He was thinking of Chester Himes in the character of Max Reddick. Harry Ames was modeled on Richard Wright. James Baldwin was fictionalized as Marion Dawes. Minister Q was certainly Malcolm X. Similarities have been noticed between Roger Wilkinson and William Gardner Smith and between Alfonse Edwards and Richard Gibson. The character of Granville Bryant was inspired by Carl Van Vechten. Paul Durrell was based on Martin Luther King.

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