The politics of exile

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In The Politics of Exile, Bryan R. Washington critically analyzes the writings of Henry James, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and James Baldwin. He argues that the novels and essays of Baldwin are an ideal lens through which to examine the writings of the two American exiles of previous generations. Baldwin was a passionate reader of Henry James. But because he was a racial "outsider," Baldwin's apparent readiness to embrace the values and assumptions inherent in the so-called genteel bourgeois tradition, to which Fitzgerald was committed as well, is a paradox that Washington subjects to intensive investigation. Washington explains how Baldwin provides a way of reconsidering James and Fitzgerald, whose ultimately nativist political ideas have been largely ignored by other critics. His fresh and original approach connects to contemporary theories on the socio-cultural work that literary texts perform. Washington considers race, gender, and class as well as sexual orientation and repressions - the homoerotic and the homophobic - in this thorough examination of exile writers. The author draws on Baldwin's Giovanni's Room and Another Country to inform his readings of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night and James's "The Beast in the Jungle" and Daisy Miller. The juxtaposition of James, Fitzgerald, and Baldwin is striking, and the volume offers the reader unique insights into the experience of exile and the writings of Americans abroad.