ABSTRACT
This chapter studies the most astute early critic of the postwar counterculture as the exponent of a uniquely African-American brand of Christian existentialism, which takes a complex understanding of mystery as its focus. With the help of parallels drawn from the work of Gabriel Marcel and Simone Weil, the affinities between Baldwin’s early writing and that of the countercultural figures he criticized become apparent, and his first novel is interpreted as a proto-cinematic narrative at the junction of religion and psychology. The governing structure of its highly personal imagery emerges through a comparison with Stan Lathan’s film adaptation, which significantly chooses not to stage the novel’s visionary passages, instead foregrounding the conventions of the coming-of-age story.
