Chester B. Himes Put His Pain on the Page to Find Literary Success
Chester B. Himes lived an extraordinary, literary life, as detailed in this biography.
Chester Himes is considered one of the most important crime writers in American history, known for his hard-boiled detective novels based in Harlem in the 1950s and 60s. Chester Himes was a prolific African-American writer who, in addition to novels, wrote social criticism, short stories, and memoir, but he is most well-known for his Harlem detective novels including Cotton Comes to Harlem and Blind Man with a Pistol. He wrote over 20 books in total. Himes was friends with Langston Hughes, hung out in Paris with James Baldwin, and like me, chose to live the final years of his life on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea in Spain.
What I find most fascinating and inspiring about Himes and his work, is how he turned the unfortunate events in his life, including a troubled childhood, virulent racism, and prison time, into an award-winning, prolific, and legendary literary career. Suffice it to say, he did not let the obstacles in his life prevent him from writing. In fact, he used his troubles and challenges as the subject matter of much of his work.
Black Family Drama
Chester Bomar Himes was born on July 29, 1909 in Jefferson City, Missouri. He had an older brother, and both of his parents were educators. His father taught industrial trades at historically Black colleges, and his mother had been a teacher, but quit teaching to raise her children. Although in all of the biographies about Himes, his household was described as “middle class,” the family had to frequently move around the country whenever his father got new teaching jobs.
So, from the outside looking in, Himes’ childhood looked like he had all of the benefits of being born into a stable, somewhat privileged family. He had educated parents, his mother was able to stay home with her kids, and yet, Himes’ childhood was marked by tragedy and trauma. Three key incidents were particularly influential in shaping Chester’s worldview.
First, his parents’ relationship was a volatile one, where they were always fighting and they ended up divorcing when Chester was a teen. Second, a pivotal moment in Chester’s young life was watching his brother get refused treatment at a local hospital after a horrible chemical accident left him temporarily blinded. The whole family witnessed this tragedy, his father crying and pleading for the hospital to admit his son, but the doctors refused to help the suffering child because of Jim Crow laws and human cruelty. Chester’s brother remained permanently blind because of that racist refusal. The third tragedy that befell young Chester was when he fell down an elevator shaft at the hotel where he worked as a teenager in Ohio. The fall did extensive damage to his back and spine, and Chester spent months in a full body cast. He had to relearn how to walk. Even after the bones were reset and the bruises were gone, Chester continued to suffer from chronic pain due to his injuries.
Despite his volatile early years, Chester made it to college. He enrolled as a freshman at Ohio State University, but was expelled in his first year because of a prank that reportedly involved pimps and prostitutes. The thing is, by the time he got to college, Chester was full of piss and vinegar from the aforementioned traumas and tragedies that marked his youth. He was drinking a lot to dull the physical pain he was in because of his accident, and the psychic pain that came from being a Black child in early 20th century America.
The Death of a Criminal Means the Birth of a Writer
Once he got kicked out of college, Chester turned to a life of crime, mostly robbing people and working in illegal gambling dens. He got arrested more than once, but after being caught for an armed robbery, he was sentenced to 20 - 25 years in the Ohio State Penitentiary. Prison marked the end of Chester’s criminal life and the beginning of his writing life.
It didn’t take long for Chester to decide he would either write in prison or die in prison. He chose writing. Trapped in his cell, he spent his time voraciously reading and practicing his craft. Fun fact, Chester ordered himself a Remington typewriter while he was behind bars. Think, today prisoners can’t even order hardcover books because they are considered potential weapons, but Chester Himes could have a Remington typewriter delivered to his cell. I guess prison officials saw writing as redemptive. Spoiler alert, it was.
Soon Chester’s articles and stories were printed in local, then national newspapers and magazines, including Esquire magazine. Getting published in Esquire really ignited his literary career, especially after he wrote about a horrible fire that broke out in the prison and killed over 300 men. That tragedy still stands as the deadliest prison fire in American history, and Chester was there to witness it all. He was able to provide a searing and emotional first-hand account of what it was like to watch prisoners who were behind bars for the most heinous crimes, become heroes as they tried valiantly to save each other from the blazing inferno.
After serving almost eight years of his 25-year sentence, Chester was released from prison. Prison officials cited his writing as proof that he had “redeemed” himself, which, side note, is just one more incredible example of the power of storytelling and writing.
Creating a Literary Life after Prison
Chester was released from prison in 1936, just as the country was coming out of the Great Depression. Like most people, Chester was forced to work any number of odd jobs, to make ends meet, but guess what he didn’t stop doing through it all? If you guessed writing, you’re right.
Despite the difficulties of being Black and a writer in post-depression America, Chester Himes found himself embraced and befriended by many in the Black literatti, including Langston Hughes. And it was his friendship with Hughes and others, that helped Himes really make a name for himself in the writing world and get his work in more publications. Chester’s first novel, If He Hollers Let Him Go, was released in 1945, and that was all it took for Chester to throw himself full-time into the writing game. His second novel Lonely Crusade was published just two years later in 1947. In 1948, Chester was awarded a residency at the prestigious Yaddo retreat. (In case you ever have a chance to visit Yaddo, there is a signed copy of his book in their library, with a personal message from Himes.)
Chester’s first two novels were both loosely based on his experiences facing racism in America. They were well received but they did not make Chester Himes rich. In other words, he still needed to find a job, but he never stopped writing.
Hollywood is the End of the Line for Chester Himes in America
Eventually, Chester heads to the west coast where he secures a job writing in Hollywood at Warner Bros. studio. For Himes, writing scripts at Warner Bros is a dream job and it feels like his luck has finally turned. A job at a movie studio meant financial stability in his chosen profession. But it wasn’t meant to be. When Jack Warner, one of the titular Warner brothers, discovered that Chester Bomar Himes was a Negro, he was livid. He very publicly declared that under no uncertain terms would a Negro work at his studio and he fired him on the spot, using the N-word as part of his abrupt and disparaging dismissal. Himes was devastated. And angry.
This experience in Hollywood was the last straw for Himes. In his autobiography he wrote: “Up to the age of 31 I had been hurt emotionally, spiritually and physically as much as 31 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.”
In 1953, Chester Himes left the United States, heading for Europe to see if life was any better for a Black man on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Welcome to Paris, Chester Himes
After a year of traveling around Europe, Himes decided to make a life in Paris, finding community with the likes of James Baldwin and Richard Wright, who showed him a better version of a writing life without the cloud of American racism hanging overhead. It wasn’t perfect, obviously, but Paris was free enough to provide Himes with the breathing room he needed to create and to write.
Of course, freedom doesn’t pay the bills. Himes was happier in Europe than he was in the United States, but he still needed to find a way to make money. But when a French publisher approached him, asking him to write a crime novel set in Harlem, initially Himes said, no. He hadn’t written any crime novels before that point, and he didn’t know if he could do it. He also didn’t know if that was something he was even interested in pursuing. But the publisher kept insisting and Chester considered the 40 cents in his bank account and decided to give crime writing a try.
That book Himes “tried” to write was called For Love of Imabelle, and it won the prestigious Grand Prix award in France for the Best Detective Novel of the year in 1957. Imabelle led to a subsequent nine-book series, featuring two Black detectives named Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson, that cemented Chester’s career. Some of the other titles in the series include, Cotton Comes to Harlem, A Rage in Harlem (yes the basis for the 1991 film), and The Real Cool Killers.
In 1966, six of Himes’ detective novels were optioned for film at which point he was paid a significant amount of money. Himes noted that it was at this point in his career that he felt like he made it. The financial renumeration for the films allowed him to pause for a moment and decide what he wanted to do next with his life.
Chester Himes Moves to Spain
In 1969, Himes moved to southeastern Spain, to a small town where he could buy land and build a house. A beautiful house overlooking the Mediterranean Sea that he named Casa de Griot, House of the Storyteller. (Griot was also the name of his beloved cat.) He remarried. He became a member of the local community. And he wrote two memoirs, The Quality of Hurt, which came out in 1972 and My Life of Absurdity, that came out in 1976. He never stopped writing, but at this point in his career, he was finally able to slow down his literary production.
Come along on my journey to Moraira, Spain, on a literary pilgrimage to find Chester Himes' final resting place.
According to newspaper accounts, Himes and his wife Lesley, became beloved members of the town of Moraira, Spain. People knew him as the African-American writer. Himes was known to frequent the beach and chat with the locals. Unfortunately, his health began to deteriorate soon after his move to Spain. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease after suffering a stroke, and he was relegated to a wheelchair for the final years of his life. But Himes never stopped writing.
Just as writing saved him from a life of crime, it also saved him when his body started to fail him. Chester Himes was literally writing until the very end, dictating his final novel to his wife. That book, A Case of Rape, was published in 1985, the year after he died.
Chester Himes died in Moraira, Spain in 1984 from Parkinson’s disease. He was 75 years old. When he died, Himes was more known and admired in Paris and Spain than in the United States, although that is definitely changing now.
Chester Himes Is Having a Moment
In recent years, there has been a marked resurgence of respect and acknowledgement of Chester Himes’ contributions to American crime fiction. His name is often mentioned in the same sentences with the likes of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and even Edgar Allen Poe. This year, Himes will be receiving the Yaddo’s Artist Medal in November, 2024, where he is being heralded not only as a great crime writer but as, “a Great American Novelist whose influence continues to impact young writers.”
When asked why Himes is often overlooked when listing America’s great writers, particularly when considering our great African-American writers, Kristy Albano, Director of Communications at Yaddo, said, “Chester’s work has often been overlooked, in part, I think, because he was writing in the genre of crime fiction. What counts as “literary” is still an issue for writers today.” She also mentioned authors like Victor LaValle, Walter Mosley, and S.A. Crosby who are helping to change the negative bias against genre fiction and lifting up Chester Himes as a godfather of the genre. Albano said, “ As S.A. Crosby wrote in The New York Times, ‘Crime fiction is the gospel of the dispossessed… A broad panoply of feelings, ideas, and emotions integral to the Black experience in America filters through the prism of [Chester’s] crime novels.’ Perhaps some readers weren't ready for those emotions and ideas during the 1950s. Our hope is that now they are.”
Learn More about Chester Himes
Chester Himes lived an incredible life and I’ve only touched on bits of it here. But I’ve left some parts out, including the bits that are complicated and uncomfortable, and show more of the controversial sides of Himes’ character. For example, his treatment of women both in real life and on the page could be considered offensive and off-putting to some. But a writer isn’t a hero, a writer is human. We don’t have to put our literary ancestors on pedestals to learn from their life experiences and benefit from their wisdom as writers.
In addition to the memoirs Himes wrote, there are many other books that delve into Himes’ life. Lawrence P. Jackson wrote an award-winning biography of Chester Himes called, Chester B. Himes. Black Perspectives magazine reviewed the biography and wrote, “Jackson synthesizes the best stories from the archives and from Himes’s own autobiographies, essays, and fiction to create a timely and urgent portrait of an artist whose life and work touches on many pressing issues of our own era, including race, sexuality, civil rights, inequality, and the justice system.”
With the continued resurgence of respect and interest in Himes and his work, I am sure you can find plenty of information about the man and his incredible body of work.