ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the decisions made by men about themselves, because that was Chester Himes's principal concern both in his life and in his fiction. His highly personalized mélange of styling selections reflected a deeply felt sense of self-awareness and self-possession. As his crime fiction moved forward, becoming self-consciously a series, Himes demonstrated that manliness often means being judged by one's peers as financially independent and, therefore, self-sufficient. In "Headwaiter", he locates the critical questions that daily undermined many black Americans. Little had changed in how mainstream perceptions were shaped about African Americans' fitness—or lack thereof—for full citizenship when Chester Himes's Harlem detective fiction series was first published in the mid twentieth century. By that time, he had been a published author for over twenty years. In his body of literary work, he often featured black male characters that are notable in part because of their meticulous attention to dress.
