When first encountered [in "Bird at My Window"], Wade Williams is recovering in the psychopathic ward of a New York hospital…. Unlike the bird at his window, thirty-eight-year-old Wade has never been free and, as the novel unfolds, one is given a stunning insight into the forces that hampered his freedom, discouraged his talent, and crushed his spirit….

All the frustrations of the Harlem Negro are sounded clearly through Wade's experiences. Family problems are foremost, especially those posed by the matriarchal system which is willing to settle for respectability alone; and which is deplored for what it can do to break a man. The inevitable racial clashes both in New York and in France where Wade is sent during World War II are movingly portrayed, and the perennial problems of sex, fundamentalism, and alcohol are carefully, but never sensationally, explored. What is achieved is a balanced portrait of...