The first section of On Writing is an Autobiography mainly about King’s early exposure to writing, and his childhood attempts at writing. King talks about his early attempts to get published, and his first novel Carrie. King also talks about his fame as a writer, and what it took to get there. This includes his relationship with his wife, the death of his mother and his history of drug and alcohol abuse. The second section is practical advice on writing, including tips on grammar and ideas about developing plot and character. King himself describes it as a guide for how "a competent writer can become a good one." This includes his beliefs that a writer should edit out unnecessary details and avoid the use of unnecessary adverbs. He also uses quotes from other books and authors to illustrate his points. The third section is also autobiographical, in which King discusses the 1999 automobile accident in which he was struck by a vehicle while walking down an isolated country road. He describes serious injuries, his painful recovery and his struggle to start writing again. King includes part of a rough draft and an edited draft of his own story entitled "1408". In the United Kingdom paperback version, a short story by Garret Adams entitled "Jumper" was included at the end of the book, which was the winner of the On Writing competition.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

The book is presented as a manuscript by its protagonist, a middle-aged man named Harry Haller, who leaves it to a chance acquaintance, the nephew of his landlady. The acquaintance adds a short preface of his own and then has the manuscript published. The title of this "real" book-in-the-book is Harry Haller''s Records (For Madmen Only). As it begins, the hero is beset by reflections on his being ill-suited for the world of everyday, regular people, specifically for frivolous bourgeois society. In his aimless wanderings about the city he encounters a person carrying an advertisement for a magic theatre who gives him a small book, Treatise on the Steppenwolf. This treatise, cited in full in the novel''s text as Harry reads it, addresses Harry by name and strikes him as describing himself uncannily. It is a discourse of a man who believes himself to be of two natures: one high, the spiritual nature of man; while the other is low, animalistic, a "wolf of the steppes". This man is entangled in an irresolvable struggle, never content with either nature because he cannot see beyond this self-made concept. The pamphlet gives an explanation of the multifaceted and indefinable nature of every man''s soul, which Harry is either unable or unwilling to recognize. It also discusses his suicidal intentions, describing him as one of the "suicides"; people who, deep down, knew they would take their own life one day. But to counter that, it hails his potential to be great, to be one of the "Immortals". The next day Harry meets a former academic friend with whom he had often discussed Oriental mythology, and who invites Harry to his home. While there, Harry is disgusted by the nationalistic mentality of his friend, who inadvertently criticizes a column Harry wrote. In turn, Harry offends the man and his wife by criticizing the wife''s picture of Goethe, which Harry feels is too thickly sentimental and insulting to Goethe''s true brilliance. This episode confirms to Harry that he is, and will always be, a stranger to his society. Trying to postpone returning home (where he has planned suicide), Harry walks aimlessly around the town for most of the night, finally stopping to rest at a dance hall where he happens on a young woman, Hermine, who quickly recognizes his desperation. They talk at length; Hermine alternately mocks Harry''s self-pity and indulges him in his explanations regarding his view of life, to his astonished relief. Hermine promises a second meeting, and provides Harry with a reason to live (or at least a substantial excuse to continue living) that he eagerly embraces. During the next few weeks, Hermine introduces Harry to the indulgences of what he calls the "bourgeois". She teaches Harry to dance, introduces him to casual drug use, finds him a lover (Maria), and, more importantly, forces him to accept these as legitimate and worthy aspects of a full life. Hermine also introduces Harry to a mysterious saxophonist named Pablo, who appears to be the very opposite of what Harry considers a serious, thoughtful man. After attending a lavish masquerade ball, Pablo brings Harry to his metaphorical "magic theatre," where concerns and notions that plagued his soul disintegrate while he interacts with the ethereal and phantasmal. The Magic Theatre is a place where he experiences the fantasies that exist in his mind. They are described as a long horseshoe-shaped corridor that is a mirror on one side and a great many doors on the other. Then, Harry enters five of these labeled doors, each of which symbolizes a fraction of his life.

Steppenwolf

The narrator is Fanny, whose mother (called "The Bolter" for her habit of serial monogamy) and father have left her to be brought up by her Aunt Emily and the valetudinarian Davey, whom Emily marries early in the novel. Fanny also spends holidays with her Uncle Matthew Radlett, Aunt Sadie, and numerous cousins at Alconleigh. Linda, the second Radlett daughter, is Fanny''s best friend and the main character of the novel. The early chapters recount the Radlett children''s bizarre upbringing, including their contrasting obsessions with hunting and preventing cruelty to animals, and the activities of their secret society, "the Hons." The Radlett daughters receive little in the way of formal education, and as Linda grows older she is increasingly consumed by a desire for romantic love and marriage. Louisa, the eldest Radlett child, makes her début and quickly becomes engaged to John Fort William, a Scottish peer more than twenty years her senior. Linda finds Lord Fort William an unromantic choice of husband, but is deeply jealous that Louisa is getting married. Linda becomes bored and depressed, awaiting her own coming-out party. During this time she makes friends with Lord Merlin, a neighbouring landlord who is a wealthy, charming aesthete with many fashionable friends. Merlin brings Tony Kroesig, heir to a wealthy banking family, as a last-minute guest to Linda''s coming-out ball. Linda falls in love with Tony, but their relationship is rocky from the start. Uncle Matthew disapproves of Tony''s German ancestry (he believes that all foreigners are fiends), and is furious when Linda and Fanny sneak away to Oxford to have luncheon with Tony. Linda and Tony eventually marry despite the strong disapproval of their families. Linda very quickly realizes that she has made a serious mistake, but she keeps up a pretence of having a happy marriage. Linda and Tony have one child, Moira, to whom Linda takes an instant dislike. Linda almost dies during Moira''s birth, and her doctors strongly advise her to have no more children. Moira is soon abandoned to the care of her paternal grandparents. During this time, Fanny marries a young man called Alfred and begins a family of her own; she therefore sees Linda less frequently. After nine years of marriage, Linda leaves Tony for Christian Talbot, an ardent Communist. Christian is kind but vague, and ultimately uninterested in individuals, preferring to focus on the plight of the working class. Linda''s divorce and remarriage cause a rift between her and her parents, but after some months they reconcile. Linda and Christian go to France to work with Spanish refugees in Perpignan during the Spanish Civil War, where they meet Linda''s old friend Lavender Davis, an efficient young woman also volunteering to help the refugees. Linda realizes that Christian and Lavender are falling in love with one another and that they would be a better pairing. Linda decides to leave Christian and leave France. On the way back to England, Linda runs out of money in Paris and meets Fabrice de Sauveterre, a wealthy French duke. Linda becomes his mistress and lives with him in Paris for eleven months. During this time she cultivates a great interest in clothes, which Fabrice encourages and finances, but most of her happiness is the result of the fact that she has finally found the love of her life. When World War II breaks out, Fabrice persuades Linda to return to England alone, for he has work to do in the French Resistance. During the war, he is able to visit Linda in England once. She becomes pregnant. Meanwhile, for safety during the London Blitz, Fanny, Louisa, and their children are living at Alconleigh, along with Matthew, Sadie, Emily, Davey, "the Bolter," and her new lover Juan (whom Uncle Matthew calls "Gewan"). When Linda''s house is bombed, she also goes to stay at Alconleigh. The Bolter sees Linda as a younger version of herself, which Linda resents, because she is certain that she has found the love of her life in Fabrice and will not run off from any more husbands. Fanny is also expecting a baby, and she and Linda give birth to their sons on the same day. Linda dies in childbirth, as the doctors had warned; around this same time, Fabrice is killed in the war. Fanny and her husband adopt Linda''s child and name him Fabrice. Mitford wrote sequels to the novel, Love in a Cold Climate (1949) and Don''t Tell Alfred (1960).

The Pursuit of Love

Brown begins his book by telling the reader about his early childhood. When he was four months old, Brown''s mother was the first to notice that there was something wrong with his health. He could not hold his head upright or control his body movements. After seeking medical advice, the family''s worst fears were confirmed: Christy was physically handicapped and suffered from an incurable affliction called cerebral palsy. His family, besides his mother, think he''s an idiot. They tell his mother to give up. Although the doctors did not believe in Brown''s mental intelligence, his mother did not lose faith in her son and supported him as a full member of the family. A transforming moment occurs in the young boy''s life that proves him to be intelligent. He discovers that he can control his left foot and toes. At the age of five, he snatches a piece of yellow chalk from his sister with his left foot. He marks the letter "A" on the floor with his foot and the help of his mother. He had wanted to make, what he described as, "a wild sort of scribble with it on the slate". It is from this incident that the book received its title. In this moment, Brown had found a way to express himself since he could not speak like a healthy child. Throughout his childhood, Brown played with local children and with his siblings, assisted by a small cart that he called "Henry". As time went on, he became more introverted, as he began to realize that his handicap made him different from his family and friends and impeded his enjoyment of life. Through this struggle, he discovered his creative and artistic talents, becoming devoted to literature, writing and painting. He used his left foot to carry out these tasks. At the age of 18, Brown went to Lourdes in France. Here, he met individuals whose handicaps were even worse than his. For the first time in his life, he begins to experience energy and hope. He begins to accept himself as the person he is and do the best with what he has. He starts a new treatment for cerebral palsy, which led to the improvement of his speech and physical condition. In his teenage years, he met the Irish doctor Robert Collis. Collis had established a clinic for cerebral palsy patients and Brown was his very first patient at this clinic. Collis was also a noted author so he provided supervision of Brown''s writing. This included two first drafts of this book and its final version. The autobiography makes reference to its own creation. The final pages tell of Collis reading the first chapter of the book to the audience at a fundraising event. The chapter was warmly received by those in attendance.

My Left Foot

Esther Greenwood, a young woman from the suburbs of Boston, gains a summer internship at a prominent magazine in New York City under editor Jay Cee. At the time of the Rosenbergs'' execution, Esther is neither stimulated nor excited by the big city and glamorous culture and lifestyle that girls her age are expected to idolize and emulate. Instead her experiences frighten and disorient her. She appreciates the witty sarcasm and adventurousness of her friend Doreen, but also identifies with the piety of Betsy (dubbed "Pollyanna Cowgirl") and a "goody-goody" sorority girl who always does the right thing. She has a benefactress in Philomena Guinea, a formerly successful fiction writer (based on Olive Higgins Prouty), who will, later during Esther''s hospitalization, pay for some of her treatments. Esther describes in detail several seriocomic incidents that occur during her internship, kicked off by an unfortunate but amusing experience at a banquet for the girls given by the staff of Ladies'' Day magazine. She reminisces about her friend Buddy, whom she has dated more or less seriously and who considers himself her de facto fiancé. She also muses about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who are scheduled for execution. She returns to her Massachusetts home in low spirits. During her stay in New York City, she had hoped to return to another scholarly opportunity, a writing course taught by a world-famous author. Upon her return home, her mother immediately tells her she was not accepted for the course. She decides to spend the summer potentially writing a novel, although she feels she doesn''t have enough life experience to write convincingly. All of her identity has been centered upon doing well academically; she is unsure of what to make of her life once she leaves school, and the choices presented to her (motherhood, as exemplified by the prolific child-bearer and vacuous Dodo Conway, or stereotypical female careers such as stenography) do not appeal to her. Esther becomes increasingly depressed, and finds herself unable to sleep. Her mother encourages, or perhaps forces, her to see a psychiatrist, Dr. Gordon, whom Esther mistrusts because he is attractive and seems to be showing off a picture of his charming family rather than listening to her. He prescribes electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). It is improperly administered, and she feels she''s being electrocuted like the Rosenbergs. Afterward, she tells her mother she won''t go back: My mother smiled. "I know my baby wasn''t like that." I looked at her. "Like what?" "Like those awful people. Those awful dead people at that hospital." She paused. "I knew you''d decide to be all right again." Esther&#39;s mental state worsens. She describes her depression as a feeling of being trapped under a bell jar, struggling for breath. She makes several half-hearted attempts at suicide, including swimming far out to sea, before making a serious attempt. She leaves a note that says she is taking a long walk, then crawls into the cellar and swallows almost 50 sleeping pills that have been prescribed for her insomnia. She is discovered under her house after a rather dramatic episode in the newspapers has presumed her kidnapping and death, all taking place over an indeterminate amount of time. She survives and is sent to a different mental hospital, where she meets Dr. Nolan, a female therapist. Along with regular sessions of psychotherapy Esther is given huge amounts of insulin to produce a &#34;reaction&#34;, and again receives shock treatments, with Dr. Nolan ensuring that they are properly administered. Esther describes the ECT as beneficial in that it has a sort of antidepressant effect, lifting the metaphorical bell jar in which she has felt trapped and stifled. Her stay at the private institution is funded by her benefactress, Philomena Guinea. Esther tells Dr. Nolan how she envies the freedom that men have, but as a woman, worries about getting pregnant. Dr. Nolan refers her to a doctor who fits her for a diaphragm. Esther now feels free from her fears about the consequences of sex. She feels free from previous pressures to get married, potentially to the wrong man. Under Dr. Nolan, Esther improves and various life-changing events help her regain her sanity. The novel ends with her entering the room for her interview which will decide whether she can leave the hospital.

The Bell Jar

The heroine, Sybylla Melvyn, is an imaginative, headstrong girl growing up in rural Australia in the 1890s. Drought and a series of poor business decisions reduce her family to subsistence level, her father begins to drink excessively, and Sybylla struggles to deal with the monotony of her life. To her relief, she is sent to live on her grandmother''s property, where life is more comfortable. There she meets wealthy young Harry Beecham, who loves her and proposes marriage; convinced of her ugliness and aware of her tomboyish ways, Sybylla is unable to believe that he could really love her. By this time, her father''s drinking has got the family into debt, and she is sent to work as governess/housekeeper for the family of an almost illiterate neighbour to whom her father owes money. She finds life there unbearable and eventually suffers a physical breakdown which leads to her return to the family home. When Harry Beecham returns to ask Sybylla to marry him, she concludes that she would only make him unhappy and sends him away, determined never to marry. The novel ends with no suggestion that she will ever have the "brilliant career" as a writer that she desires.

My Brilliant Career

A young mother and her two daughters travel to Marrakech, Morocco, during the 1960s. The mother, Julia, is disenchanted by the dreary conventions of English life, hence the journey. They live in a low-rent Marrakesh hotel and make a living out of making hand-sewn dolls and with some money sent by the girls'' father, a poet in London. Whilst the mother explores Sufism and quests for personal fulfilment, the daughters rebel. The elder, Bea, attempting to re-create her English life, wants to get an education and insists on going to school. The younger, Lucy, dreams of trivial things, like mashed potatoes, but also yearns for a father. Her hopes settle on a most unlikely candidate. The girls match their mother with Bilal, a Moroccan con man and acrobat; the relationship turns sexual and he moves in, becoming almost a surrogate father. However, Julia''s friend encourages her to travel to Algiers and study with a Sufi master at a school that advocates the "annihilation of the ego." As money vanishes, Julia''s response is to claim that "God will provide," albeit in the person of Bilal.

Hideous Kinky

Each of the lives is very different from the others, although there are common threads - for example the recurrent appearance of William Ewart Gladstone and Arthur Hugh Clough. Each story is set against a specific background. In Cardinal Manning''s story, the background is the creation of the Oxford Movement and the defection of an influential group of Church of England clergy to the Catholic Church. This aspect is covered in depth to explain the movement and its main protagonists, particularly Manning''s hostile relationship with John Henry Newman. Strachey is critical of Manning''s underhand manipulations in attempting to prevent Newman being made a Cardinal. The background features of Florence Nightingale''s story are the machinations of the War Office, and the obtuseness of the military and politicians. Strachey depicts Florence Nightingale as an intense, driven woman who is both personally intolerable and admirable in her achievements. Dr Arnold is hailed as an exemplar who established the Public School system. Strachey describes this as an education based on chapel and the classics, with a prefectorial system to maintain order. He points out that it was not Arnold who was responsible for the obsession with sport, but does make it clear that Arnold was at fault in ignoring the sciences. Although Arnold was revered at the time, in retrospect Strachey sees his approach as very damaging. Strachey also mocks Arnold''s efforts at moral improvement of the general public, for example his unsuccessful weekly newspaper. Gordon’s is the story of a maverick soldier and adventurer, whose original military achievements in China would have been forgotten. He was a mercenary who got into and out of conflicts on behalf of various dubious governments, but much of his experience was in the Sudan. The final disaster was when the Egyptian occupation of Sudan was almost completely overthrown by fundamentalist rebels, and someone was needed to retrieve the situation in Khartoum. The job fell to Gordon, whose instincts were to do anything but withdraw, and he became embroiled in a siege. The British government was put in an almost impossible dilemma, and when eventually they did send a relief expedition it arrived just two days too late. Strachey based Gordon’s story on his diaries and letters to give an account of a strong individual almost at odds with the world.

Eminent Victorians

The book opens with a scene from Spiegelman''s Rego Park childhood in 1958. He runs to his father after being left behind by his friends, but his father responds in broken English, "Friends? Your friends? If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week, then you could see what it is, friends!" As an adult, Spiegelman visits his father, Vladek, from whom he has become estranged. Vladek has remarried to a woman called Mala since the suicide of Art''s mother, Anja, in 1968. Art wants to get Vladek to recount his Holocaust experience. Vladek tells of his time in Częstochowa, describing how he came to marry into Anja''s wealthy family in 1937 and move to Sosnowiec to become a manufacturer. Vladek begs Art not to include this part of the story in the book and Art reluctantly agrees. Anja suffers a mental breakdown after giving birth to their first son, Richieu, towards the end of the year. The couple go to a sanitarium in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia for her to recover. After they return, political and antisemitic tensions build until Vladek is drafted just in time for the Nazi invasion. Vladek is captured at the front and put to labor as a prisoner of war. After being released, he finds Sosnowiec has been annexed by Germany, and he is released on the other side of the border in the Polish protectorate. He sneaks across the border and is reunited with his family. During one of Art''s visits, he finds that a friend of Mala''s has sent them one of the underground comix magazines he had contributed to. Mala had tries to hide it, but Vladek finds and reads it. The four-page "Prisoner on the Hell Planet", reprinted in full, is a striking visual and thematic contrast with the rest of the book. Art is traumatized by his mother''s suicide three months after he was released from the state mental hospital, and in the end depicts himself behind bars, saying "You murdered me, Mommy, and left me here to take the rap!" In 1943, all Jews were ordered to move from Sosnowiec to Srodula, from where they would be marched to Sosnowiec to work. The family is split up—Richieu is sent to Zawiercie to be with his aunt, where they believed he would be safe. As the round-ups increase, and more Jews are sent from the ghettos to Auschwitz, the aunt poisons herself, her children and Richieu to escape the Gestapo. In Srodula, many Jews, including Vladek, build bunkers to hide from the German roundups. Vladek''s bunker is discovered and he is placed into a "ghetto inside the ghetto", surrounded by barbed wire. Later the remnants of Vladek and Anja''s family are taken away. Srodula is cleared completely of its Jews, except for a group Vladek hides with in another bunker. When the Germans finally depart, the group splits up and leaves the ghetto. In Sosnowiec, Vladek and Anja move from one hiding place to the next, making occasional contact with other Jews in hiding. Vladek hunts for provisions disguised as a Pole. They arrange with smugglers to escape to Hungary, but it is a trick—they are arrested by the Gestapo on the train and are taken to Auschwitz, where they are separated until after the war. Art asks after Anja''s diaries, which Vladek tells him were her later account of her Holocaust experiences. They are the only way to find out what happened to her after she was separated from Vladek at Auschwitz. Vladek tells Art she had said, "I wish my son, when he grows up, he will be interested in this". Vladek comes to admit that he burned them after she killed herself. Art is enraged, and calls Vladek a "murderer". The story jumps to 1986, after the first six chapters of Maus were collected into a single volume. Art is overcome with the unexpected attention the book receives, finding himself "totally blocked". Art talks with his psychiatrist, Paul Pavel, a Czech Holocaust survivor, about the book, who suggests that, as those who perished in the camps can never tell their stories, "maybe it''s better not to have any more stories". Art replies with a quote from Samuel Beckett: "Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness", but then realizes, "on the other hand, he said it". Vladek tells of his hardships in the camps, of starvation and abuse, of avoiding the selektionen and of his resourcefulness. Though it is dangerous, Anja and Vladek occasionally are able to exchange messages. As the war progresses, and the German front is pushed back, the prisoners are marched from Auschwitz, in Poland, to Gross-Rosen within the Reich, and then to Dachau, where the hardships only increase and Vladek catches typhus. The war ends, the camp survivors are freed, and Vladek and Anja are reunited. The book closes with Vladek turning over in his bed and telling Art, "I''m tired from talking, Richieu, and it''s enough stories for now." The final image is of Vladek and Anja''s tombstone—Vladek died in 1982, long before the book was completed.

Maus

The book covers a period of time between September 1926 and May 1927, and is divided into two sections: The Craft and New York to Paris. In the first section, The Craft (pp. 3–178), Lindbergh describes the latter days of his career as an airmail pilot and presents his account of conceiving, planning, and executing the building of the Spirit of St. Louis aircraft. He describes the many challenges he faced, including getting financial backing, constructing an aircraft that could carry the necessary fuel and still fly, and completing the project within several months—other pilots were racing to achieve the first solo trans-Atlantic flight and win the $25,000 Orteig Prize. In the second section, New York to Paris (pp. 181–492), Lindbergh gives a detailed hour-by-hour account of his 33-hour solo flight above the Atlantic and northern Europe that began in the early morning hours of May 21, 1927. He describes the numerous challenges presented by navigation, storms, fuel calculation, boredom, and lack of sleep during the course of the flight that would take him over 3,600 miles from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, New York to Le Bourget field in Paris. Throughout the narrative, Lindbergh interjects flashback memories of his childhood in Little Falls, Minnesota, his college years, his early years as an aviator barnstorming across the countryside, his aviation mentors and friends who flew the mail routes with him, and his family—especially his father, who was not only a congressman, but a respected and sage companion to his young son. As Lindbergh flies through the long, solitary night toward Europe, forcing his sleep-obsessed mind to check and re-check his course, he recalls the night he was flying the mail from St. Louis to Chicago when he first thought of flying across the Atlantic Ocean. Lindbergh believed he could make that flight, and he remembers his nine St. Louis friends who helped him purchase the Spirit of St. Louis and realize his dream. Lindbergh describes the thrill of spotting the first fishing boats off the coast of Ireland, and then crossing the coast of France, and then following the Seine River all the way Paris and Le Bourget field. In addition to an Afterword (pp. 495–501), Lindbergh included an extensive Appendix (pp. 503–562) containing his flight log, a flight map, his journal account of his return to the United States aboard the cruiser Memphis, an article about the decorations, awards, and trophies he received, engineering data and engine specifications, 16 pages of photographs, various illustrations, and a glossary.

The Spirit of St. Louis

Carol Milford is a liberal, free-spirited young woman, reared in the metropolis of Saint Paul, Minnesota. She marries Will Kennicott, a doctor, who is a small-town boy at heart. When they marry, Will convinces her to live in his home-town of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota (a town modeled on Sauk Centre, Minnesota, the author''s birthplace). Carol is appalled at the backwardness of Gopher Prairie. But her disdain for the town''s physical ugliness and smug conservatism compels her to reform it. She speaks with its members about progressive changes, joins women''s clubs, distributes literature, and holds parties to liven up Gopher Prairie''s inhabitants. Despite her friendly, but ineffective efforts, she is constantly derided by the leading cliques. She finds comfort and companionship outside her social class. These companions are taken from her one by one. In her unhappiness, Carol leaves her husband and moves for a time to Washington, D.C., but she eventually returns. Nevertheless, Carol does not feel defeated: :: "I do not admit that Main Street is as beautiful as it should be! I do not admit that dish-washing is enough to satisfy all women!"

Main Street

Black Boy (American Hunger) is a memoir of Richard Wright''s childhood and young adulthood. It is split into two sections, "Southern Night" (concerning his childhood in the south) and "The Horror and the Glory" (concerning his early adult years in Chicago). The book begins with a mischievous, four-year-old Wright setting fire to his grandmothers'' house, and continues in that vein. Wright is a curious child living in a household of strict, religious women and violent, irresponsible men. He quickly chafes against his surroundings, reading instead of playing with other children, and rejecting the church in favor of atheism at a young age. He feels even more out of place as he grows older and comes in contact with the rampant racism of the 1920s south. Not only he finds it generally unjust but also he is especially bothered by whites'' and other blacks'' desire to squash his intellectual curiosity and potential. His father deserts the family, and he is shuffled back and forth between his sick mother, his fanatically religious grandmother and various aunts and uncles. As he ventures into the white world to find jobs, he encounters extreme racism and brutal violence, which stays with him the rest of his life. The family is starving to death. They have always viewed the north as a place of opportunity, and so as soon as they can scrape together enough money, Richard and his aunt go to Chicago, promising to send for his mother and brother. But before Richard can go to Chicago, he has to resort to stealing money and lying. Richard, many times, has to do things that he does not want to do, in order to survive. He finds the north less racist than the south and begins forming concrete ideas about American race relations. He holds many jobs, most of them menial. He washes floors during the day and reads Proust and medical journals by night. His family is still very poor, and his mother is crippled by a stroke, and his relatives continue to annoy him about his atheism and his reading. They see no point of it. He finds a job at the post office and meets some white men who share his cynical view of the world and religion in particular. They invite him to the John Reed Club, an organization that promotes the arts and social change. He becomes involved with a magazine called Left Front. He slowly becomes immersed in the Communist Party, organizing its writers and artists. At first, he thinks he will find friends within the party, especially among its black members, but he finds them to be just as afraid of change as the southern whites he had left behind. The Communists fear anyone who disagrees with their ideas, and Wright, who has always been inclined to question and speak his mind, is quickly branded a "counter-revolutionary." When he tries to leave the party, he is accused of trying to lead others away from it. After witnessing the trial of another black Communist for counter-revolutionary activity, Wright decides to abandon the party. Hhe remains branded an "enemy" of Communism, and party members threaten him away from various jobs and gatherings. Nevertheless, he does not fight them because he believes they are clumsily groping toward ideas that he agrees with: unity, tolerance, and equality. He ends the book by resolving to use his writing to search for a way to start a revolution: he thinks that everyone has a "hunger" for life that needs to be filled, and for him, writing is his way to the human heart.

Autobiography

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

By Stephen King

Steppenwolf

By Hermann Hesse

The Pursuit of Love

By Nancy Mitford

My Left Foot

By Christy Brown

The Bell Jar

By Sylvia Plath

My Brilliant Career

By Miles Franklin

Hideous Kinky

By Esther Freud

Eminent Victorians

By Lytton Strachey

Maus

By Art Spiegelman

The Spirit of St. Louis

By Charles Lindbergh

Main Street

By Sinclair Lewis

Black Boy

By Richard Wright