Baldwin, Styron, and Me by Mélikah Abdelmoumen

Reviewed by Timothy Niedermann

James Baldwin and William Styron, two iconic American writers, were close friends. Although they had met before, the friendship bloomed during the several months in 1961 Baldwin stayed with Styron and his family at their house in Roxbury, Connecticut. Baldwin was an intense man and in addition to being a writer, was a dedicated civil rights activist. Styron is best known for Sophie’s Choice, his blockbuster best-seller, which became a successful film starring Meryl Streep. But he was also the author of The Confessions of Nat Turner a novelized story of the man who led a short-lived rebellion of slaves against their white masters in Virginia in 1831.

Baldwin was the grandson of slaves. Styron was the grandson of slave owners. When they became friends, the US was in the middle of a soul-searching period. It was the time of the Civil Rights Movement, with Martin Luther King, Jr. and others struggling to end the blatant and often vicious discrimination against Black people that pervaded US society, particularly in the American South.

But author Abdelmoumen is not writing about civil rights as such. She is writing about personal identity: how others see us and how we see ourselves. Born in Chicoutimi, Quebec, to a Québécoise woman and a Tunisian father, Abdelmoumen grew up thinking of herself as Québécoise, but as she got older, she began to encounter people who would politely ask where she was “from,” thanks to her decidedly non-French name and not-quite white skin colour. Then she married a Frenchman and lived in France for seventeen years, where many people’s attitude toward “Arabs” was, and remains, anything but friendly.

Styron was encouraged by Baldwin to write The Confessions of Nat Turner, but the reaction to it was mixed. Some members of the Black community were angered that a White man had appropriated this icon of anti-slavery, Nat Turner. How could Styron know anything about what it was like to be a slave? How, for that matter, could he understand what it was to be Black in the modern US? The controversy provoked a debate about these issues, one that has largely been forgotten, given Styron’s later prestige.

Abdelmoumen presents these issues thoroughly, but Baldwin, Styron, and Me is not only about past events. It is about personal identity in today’s world. When she returned to Quebec in 2017, she had trouble assimilating herself mentally to what she thought was home. This surprised and confused her, and she spends the bulk of the book considering this issue from as many angles as she can. The result is an enlightening (and, indeed much needed, in these stressful times) discussion of everything that goes into identity. We may be our parents’ children, but are we our parents? Are we from where we were born or where we live now? If not, then what and who are we?

Leaving politics to the side, Abdelmoumen also asks: What does it mean to be from Québec? The discussion is both serious and humorous, but as with the rest of the book, she gives no pat answers.

What Abdelmoumen has written is important and very timely. It is also positive. Given the anxieties of our time where everything about us is put into question and hateful accusations based solely on appearance, religion, nationality, etc. take up enormous space in public dialogue, it is wonderfully reassuring to read this book, about two men who overcame their ancestry and social differences to create a lasting friendship. They have lessons to teach us, if we choose to listen.

An enthralling read of enormous value, Baldwin, Styron, and Me is published by Biblioasis.