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If Beale Street Could Talk: by James Baldwin​​​​​​​ | Conversation Starters 

If Beale Street Could Talk: by James Baldwin | Conversation Starters



Fonny, a sculptor, is arrested for the crime of raping a Puerto Rican woman. It’s a crime he did not commit. Fonny’s fiancee, Tish, is pregnant with his baby. In an attempt to appeal to the rape victim, Tish’s mother goes to Puerto Rico to talk to her, but she only sees a woman who lives in even more dire poverty. Fonny’s father, unable to bear seeing his son behind bars, commits suicide. James Baldwin’s 1974 novel highlights primal emotions in his characters — love, terror, and hate— to stress the importance of human bonds and that human beings‘ survival is based on these bonds. Fonny’s strong emotional bonds help him survive imprisonment. The thought of his unborn baby gives him hope. So do the desperate and heroic efforts of his family to get him out of jail. 

If Beale Street Could Talk is adapted into a film by award-winning director Barry Jenkins. The movie brings to focus the late Baldwin’s literary career and his theme of black intimacy at a time when racism prevailed.




A Brief Look Inside:



EVERY GOOD BOOK CONTAINS A WORLD FAR DEEPER

than the surface of its pages. The characters and their world come alive,

and the characters and its world still live on.


Conversation Starters is peppered with questions designed to

bring us beneath the surface of the page

and invite us into the world that lives on.

These questions can be used to..




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