SOURCE: "Bad Influence," in The New Yorker, Vol. LXX, No. 3, March 7, 1994, pp. 94-8.

[Gates is an American reviewer, editor, and educator known for his many contributions to the study of black literature. In the following review, he explores the place of McCall's autobiography in the existing canon of African-American literature.]

In the course of a spectacularly uneven career, Richard Wright, the first black writer to earn a living by his pen, created two indelible characters. The first was Bigger Thomas, the protagonist of Native Son. Young, black, and poor—and victimized by a series of events beyond his control or comprehension—Bigger ends up killing both a white heiress and his own girlfriend before being captured and sentenced to death. His rapid descent, detailed by Wright with unapologetic naturalism, reveals the hopelessness of a life where free will is merely an illusion, where any glimmering of real freedom...