ABSTRACT
The next generation of African-American writers drew great strength from Native Son. The commercial success of the novel alone meant much to those hoping to follow in Wright’s footsteps. Native Son’s nomination by the popular Book-of-the-Month Club came at some cost, as the writer Hazel Rowley’s essay ‘The Shadow of the White Woman’ will show us (see Critical readings, pp. 88-97), it led to some very regrettable changes being made to Wright’s original manuscript. But it also meant that the book secured an astonishingly wide readership, finding favour among ordinary Americans as well as among the country’s literary intelligentsia. In the same way, few could fail to be impressed by talk of a film adaptation of the book and even after it had transpired that the film was appalling and best forgotten, the precedent thus set remained indisputably welcome.
