Preview of Pinktoes Summary:

In all his writing, Himes is concerned with the daily realities, the pressures and humiliations, of being black in a racist society dominated by whites.

Although his work leaves little doubt as to whom the real enemy is, it also reveals the agonized awareness that blacks often do little to help their own cause, and thus remain the prisoners of their weaknesses and obsessions.

Himes expresses these concerns indirectly in his detective novels through the violent adventures of his two black detectives in Harlem. In Pinktoes, he reveals his vision of the black experience in America more directly, in a savagely funny satire of Harlem's black liberals.

Himes's protagonist is Mamie Mason, an upper-middle-class black woman who believes she is devoted to solving "the Negro problem." In reality, Mamie is totally preoccupied with sex, as are all the other characters. Her idea of helping...