Although I’ve heard about James Baldwin’s brilliance for over a decade now, I only just dipped my toe into his fiction for the first time this week. I wasn’t sure what drew me to Baldwin’s debut novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, but within a few paragraphs, I could tell that the book wrestles with the very themes I’ve been writing about on Mina, Unfiltered for the past month.

Go Tell It on the Mountain chronicles the spiritual, sexual, and moral struggles of 14-year-old John Grimes as he seeks salvation in his stepfather’s Harlem church. Unbeknownst to him, he carries the shame of generations on his shoulders, and the demons he fights so desperately against were gifted to him by the very figures from whom he seeks love and approval.

Have you ever had an “Aha!” moment while reading one of the classics that made you think, “Holy cow. This is why you’re the blueprint!?”

To say that reading this novel was a spiritual experience would be an understatement. I devoured it in a single day, equipped with nothing but a highlighter, a stack of sticky notes, and a pen for note-taking. I highlighted over 30 passages in my 226-page version of the book and took notes on style, form, and content alike. Halfway through the novel, I texted my friends that “I can only hope that one of my novels is this good.”

I recently noticed some online discourse about reading problematic authors and whether separating the art from the artist works differently in literature than in music and other art forms. There was a conversation about Baldwin specifically and whether his complexity as a person should change how we read his work. Aside from the fact that the answer is almost always “It depends,” the entire argument misses the point. If the point of reading is to wrestle with ideas, perspectives, and choices that you would never encounter on your own, then the content of the material itself takes precedent in most cases.

Of course, there is danger in the unchecked spread of propaganda materials and the glorification of abuse. But there must also be room for nuance, depth, and complexity in literature — the best of which comes from the most complex humans. It is hard to write about raw, difficult experiences without having them yourself. If we keep this in mind, it makes sense that Go Tell It on the Mountain elicited such a visceral response in me; the novel is semi-autobiographical, and James Baldwin was as complex as they come.

It is Baldwin’s complexity that allowed him to lay forth a tale about shame, grief, and the double-edged sword of religion with such clarity and poeticism.

At the heart of John’s shame is his sexuality. He finds himself attracted to an older boy in the church, and torments himself with both his belief that he is forever unclean and his fear that others will find out. John has good reason to fear: his abusive stepfather would beat him near death should he find out about John’s sexuality, and the church members would publicly scorn him.

John’s shame is compounded by his desire for his stepfather’s love, which is stifled by the man’s own shame and denial. Thus, the cycle continues.

As a bisexual Black person raised in a religious family, I understood John all too well. While I never actively sought religious salvation as the “remedy” to my sexuality, the fear of Hell possibly being real kept me under constant internal vigilance long after I stopped believing.

Now, as an adult, I earnestly think that raising a child to believe in and fear Hell is a form of child abuse. The fear, anxiety, and psychological torment that children — especially neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ kids — undergo is not worth the favor of any God that requires that from its creations.

Grief permeates Go Tell It on the Mountain the way it permeates the Black American community as a whole. This grief extends to the entire Black African Diaspora, although I can only speak for the community I’m most familiar with.

The generational, bone-deep grief of racism, chattel slavery, Jim Crow, and all that they cost torments the Grimes family the same way it torments the Black community today. The grief of losing both people you love and the opportunity to even dream of a better, freer life for yourself. The grief of losing your best self, the self that is free to be the version of you that would light your soul on fire. The grief of seeing people you love hollow out themselves to fit a world that is hell-bent on destroying them. The grief of seeing your people find solace in belief systems that were always meant to subjugate them.

There is a certain heaviness that you’re born with when you come from a community that’s been targeted with systemic, unnatural death. Death, not from natural predators or environmental disasters, but from a man-made system that places you at the bottom of a hierarchy you never consented to. That heaviness manifests in a myriad of ways both in real life and in Go Tell It on the Mountain.”

Like many of us, the Grimes family turned to Christianity and the Bible for hope and comfort that this suffering is all worth it — that enduring pain in this life will guarantee bliss in the next. Unfortunately, with hope also came judgment, shame, and blame. In that way, Black Americans’ captive embrace of Christianity has cost just as many lives as it has saved.

That’s the funny thing about doctrine, isn’t it? What it provides in community, it takes away in isolation from the Other. What it provides in hope, guidance, and the strength to endure, it takes away in the lack of autonomy and discouragement of self-trust.

The most devout characters in the book speak of the godly path as one of constant danger. The righteous, though saved, are constantly under attack from the Devil. They must shun worldly things and people, including those they love if necessary, and make decisions based on the Lord’s guidance. The ones who question why this has to be the case all meet tragic ends.

Perhaps the most tragic end in the novel is John’s. He experiences a supernatural, solitary spiritual awakening that leads him to dedicate his life to Christ. Although he survives physically, his soul dies and is reborn as a version of himself that is “saved,” and therefore carries all the burdens of righteousness. Part of me mourns for the John who questions, the John who rejects doctrine. I can see him throwing himself into ministry, trying to pray the gay away to no avail, before settling down with a woman he could never love and continuing the shame/grief cycle. We don’t get to see the end of his story, but I hope it’s better than the one I imagine.

I’ve chosen to keep the specifics of this essay intentionally vague because I really think everyone should read Go Tell It on the Mountain and experience the wonder of Baldwin’s prose for themselves. Baldwin commands words like the moon commands the tides, gently but decisively. I’ve never experienced anything like it.

What parts of yourself have you shunned in the name of community? What shame and grief that you carry that never fully belonged to you in the first place? What would it feel like to let it go?

Yours in connection,
Mina

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