SOURCE: "If the Street Could Talk: James Baldwin's Search for Love and Understanding," in The City in African-American Literature, edited by Yoshinobu Hakutani and Robert Butler, Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1995, pp. 150-67.

In the following essay, Hakutani traces the protagonist's search for love and salvation in If Beale Street Could Talk, and contrasts Baldwin's optimistic view in this novel with the pessimism of other African-American writers, including Richard Wright.

No Name in the Street, a book of essays Baldwin wrote immediately before If Beale Street Could Talk, is about the life of black people in the city just as the story of Beale Street takes place in the city. While No Name in the Street is a departure from Baldwin's earlier book of essays in expressing his theory of love. If Beale Street Could Talk goes a step further in showing how black people can deliver that love...