The Collected Novels of Charles Wright

In this incisive, satirical collection of three autobiographical novels—which the New York Times hailed as “malevolent, bitter, glittering”—by Charles Wright, whom poet and novelist Ishmael Reed hailed as “Richard Pryor on paper,” a young, black intellectual from the South struggles to make it in New York City—with a foreword by Ishmael Reed. As fresh and poignant as when originally published in 1963 to 1973, The Messenger, The Wig, and Absolutely Nothing to Get Alarmed About form Charles Wright’s remarkable New York City trilogy. By turns brutally funny and starkly real, these three classic American novels create a memorable portrait of a young, working-class, black intellectual—a man caught between the bohemian elite of Greenwich Village and the dregs of male prostitution and drug abuse. Wright’s fiction is searingly original in bringing to life a special time, a special place, and the remarkable story of a man living in two worlds. With a foreword by acclaimed poet and novelist Ishmael Reed, this updated edition not only reintroduces Wright’s fans to his darkly humorous, satirical, and eloquent prose, but also brings his unique literary talent to a host of new readers, as it shines a spotlight once again on this important writer—a writer whose work is so crucial to our times. “Reading Wright is a steep, stinging pleasure.”—Dwight Garner