F.B. Eyes: How J. Edgar Hoover's Ghostreaders Framed African American Literature
William J. Maxwell
(Author)
Description
How FBI surveillance influenced African American writing
Few institutions seem more opposed than African American literature and J. Edgar Hoover's white-bread Federal Bureau of Investigation. But behind the scenes the FBI's hostility to black protest was energized by fear of and respect for black writing. Drawing on nearly 14,000 pages of newly released FBI files, F.B. Eyes exposes the Bureau's intimate policing of five decades of African American poems, plays, essays, and novels. Starting in 1919, year one of Harlem's renaissance and Hoover's career at the Bureau, secretive FBI "ghostreaders" monitored the latest developments in African American letters. By the time of Hoover's death in 1972, these ghostreaders knew enough to simulate a sinister black literature of their own. The official aim behind the Bureau's close reading was to anticipate political unrest. Yet, as William J. Maxwell reveals, FBI surveillance came to influence the creation and public reception of African American literature in the heart of the twentieth century. Taking his title from Richard Wright's poem "The FB Eye Blues," Maxwell details how the FBI threatened the international travels of African American writers and prepared to jail dozens of them in times of national emergency. All the same, he shows that the Bureau's paranoid style could prompt insightful criticism from Hoover's ghostreaders and creative replies from their literary targets. For authors such as Claude McKay, James Baldwin, and Sonia Sanchez, the suspicion that government spy-critics tracked their every word inspired rewarding stylistic experiments as well as disabling self-censorship. Illuminating both the serious harms of state surveillance and the ways in which imaginative writing can withstand and exploit it, F.B. Eyes is a groundbreaking account of a long-hidden dimension of African American literature.Product Details
Price
$26.95
Publisher
Princeton University Press
Publish Date
December 06, 2016
Pages
384
Dimensions
5.4 X 8.4 X 1.0 inches | 1.0 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9780691173412
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About the Author
William J. Maxwell is professor of English and African and African American studies at Washington University in St. Louis. His F.B. Eyes Digital Archive presents copies of 51 of the FBI files discussed in this book.
Reviews
Solid and often eye-opening.---John Woodford, Against the Current
[An] immensely important story about the black authors that we thought we knew, from the 'notorious negro revolutionary' Claude McKay to the Black Arts poet Sonia Sanchez. . . . [A] welcome model for seeing state interference in culture as a two-way street.-- "Los Angeles Review of Books"
F. B. Eyes is pitched at both academic and general readers. It makes an unexpected addition to studies of twentieth-century African American literature and succeeds in presenting J. Edgar Hoover as a more complex figure than James Baldwin's telling description of him: as history's most highly paid (and most utterly useless) voyeur.---Douglas Field, Times Literary Supplement-- "Los Angeles Review of Books"
One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2015-- "Los Angeles Review of Books"
F.B. Eyes is a startling look at how racism has influenced the highest levels of authority.---John T. Slania, Book Page-- "Los Angeles Review of Books"
Wickedly amusing. . . . Genius.---Alan M. Wald, Modern Philology-- "Los Angeles Review of Books"
[T]his well-researched volume illustrates the paranoia and self-censorship that altered the course of African American literature for decades as a result of the bureau's surveillance. This scholarly work will appeal to academic readers with a particular interest in African American literature or the FBI.-- "Library Journal"
A St. Louis Post-Dispatch Best Book of 2015-- "Library Journal"
Indispensable to American historians and literary critics alike.---Kenneth O'Reilly, Journal of American History-- "Library Journal"
[R]iveting. . . . F.B. Eyes is scintillating scholarship; for those invested in the literary and extra-literary lives of African American authors it holds all the intrigue of a pulp spy novel.---Adam Bradley, Chronicle Review-- "Library Journal"
Maxwell does an excellent job in thoroughly exploring FBI investigations of black writers and this unique writer-critic interplay. . . . F.B. Eyes does well in illuminating the interplay between bureau surveillance and literary production.---Jared Leighton, American Studies-- "Library Journal"
F.B. Eyes exhibits exhaustive research without exhausting its subject. It is the rare combination of the complex argument stated clearly. Maxwell's reader-friendly structure is a welcome contribution to the genre of academic writing. . . . Paves the way for new readings of works we think we already know by providing a new understanding of the complex interplay between twentieth-century African American writers and their readers.---Tamara Slankard, Modern Fiction Studies-- "Library Journal"
Professor Maxwell's book and . . . website are a treasure trove for readers and researchers alike, especially those with an interest in political history and literary history.---Robin Lindley, History News Network, -- "Library Journal"
Shortlisted for the 2016 MSA Book Prize, Modernist Studies Association-- "Library Journal"
[S]tartling. . . . Much of what Maxwell has discovered . . . paints a sobering picture of state-sanctioned repression and harassment over decades. It's a tribute to the strength of the panoply of FBI-targeted writers, intellectuals and leaders that they, for the most part, toughed it out and remain with us today as a fundamental part of the fabric of American history and letters.---Repps Hudson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch-- "Library Journal"
Winner of a 2016 American Book Award, Before Columbus Foundation-- "Library Journal"
[A] bold, provocative study. . . . Maxwell's passion for the subject spills onto every page of his detailed, persuasive documentation that 'the FBI [was] an institution tightly knit (not consensually) to African-American literature.'-- "Publishers Weekly"
[T]he book's fresh perspective on the FBI's fitful tango with both its targets and its own intentions gives twenty-first-century artists potentially more daring variations, in the NSA age, on the arch replies of Wright, Ellison, Hughes, et al., to the spies. But the prospect can never neutralize the queasy, infuriating sense of so much officially sanctioned energy-squandering on generations of writers who wanted little more than to be taken more seriously than their ancestors. . . . The lurid and revealing testimony collected in F.B. Eyes calls to mind the sage counsel offered by John le Carré's fictitious traitor in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: Secret services, he explains, are 'the only real measure of a nation's political health, the only real expression of the subconscious.'---Gene Seymour, Bookforum-- "Publishers Weekly"
[Maxwell] brilliantly and chillingly examines how for 50 years Hoover and the FBI monitored the literary production of African American writers. . . . The volume reads like a detective thriller as it uncovers what Maxwell calls the 'ghostreading' practices of the FBI.-- "Choice"
[An] immensely important story about the black authors that we thought we knew, from the 'notorious negro revolutionary' Claude McKay to the Black Arts poet Sonia Sanchez. . . . [A] welcome model for seeing state interference in culture as a two-way street.-- "Los Angeles Review of Books"
F. B. Eyes is pitched at both academic and general readers. It makes an unexpected addition to studies of twentieth-century African American literature and succeeds in presenting J. Edgar Hoover as a more complex figure than James Baldwin's telling description of him: as history's most highly paid (and most utterly useless) voyeur.---Douglas Field, Times Literary Supplement-- "Los Angeles Review of Books"
One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2015-- "Los Angeles Review of Books"
F.B. Eyes is a startling look at how racism has influenced the highest levels of authority.---John T. Slania, Book Page-- "Los Angeles Review of Books"
Wickedly amusing. . . . Genius.---Alan M. Wald, Modern Philology-- "Los Angeles Review of Books"
[T]his well-researched volume illustrates the paranoia and self-censorship that altered the course of African American literature for decades as a result of the bureau's surveillance. This scholarly work will appeal to academic readers with a particular interest in African American literature or the FBI.-- "Library Journal"
A St. Louis Post-Dispatch Best Book of 2015-- "Library Journal"
Indispensable to American historians and literary critics alike.---Kenneth O'Reilly, Journal of American History-- "Library Journal"
[R]iveting. . . . F.B. Eyes is scintillating scholarship; for those invested in the literary and extra-literary lives of African American authors it holds all the intrigue of a pulp spy novel.---Adam Bradley, Chronicle Review-- "Library Journal"
Maxwell does an excellent job in thoroughly exploring FBI investigations of black writers and this unique writer-critic interplay. . . . F.B. Eyes does well in illuminating the interplay between bureau surveillance and literary production.---Jared Leighton, American Studies-- "Library Journal"
F.B. Eyes exhibits exhaustive research without exhausting its subject. It is the rare combination of the complex argument stated clearly. Maxwell's reader-friendly structure is a welcome contribution to the genre of academic writing. . . . Paves the way for new readings of works we think we already know by providing a new understanding of the complex interplay between twentieth-century African American writers and their readers.---Tamara Slankard, Modern Fiction Studies-- "Library Journal"
Professor Maxwell's book and . . . website are a treasure trove for readers and researchers alike, especially those with an interest in political history and literary history.---Robin Lindley, History News Network, -- "Library Journal"
Shortlisted for the 2016 MSA Book Prize, Modernist Studies Association-- "Library Journal"
[S]tartling. . . . Much of what Maxwell has discovered . . . paints a sobering picture of state-sanctioned repression and harassment over decades. It's a tribute to the strength of the panoply of FBI-targeted writers, intellectuals and leaders that they, for the most part, toughed it out and remain with us today as a fundamental part of the fabric of American history and letters.---Repps Hudson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch-- "Library Journal"
Winner of a 2016 American Book Award, Before Columbus Foundation-- "Library Journal"
[A] bold, provocative study. . . . Maxwell's passion for the subject spills onto every page of his detailed, persuasive documentation that 'the FBI [was] an institution tightly knit (not consensually) to African-American literature.'-- "Publishers Weekly"
[T]he book's fresh perspective on the FBI's fitful tango with both its targets and its own intentions gives twenty-first-century artists potentially more daring variations, in the NSA age, on the arch replies of Wright, Ellison, Hughes, et al., to the spies. But the prospect can never neutralize the queasy, infuriating sense of so much officially sanctioned energy-squandering on generations of writers who wanted little more than to be taken more seriously than their ancestors. . . . The lurid and revealing testimony collected in F.B. Eyes calls to mind the sage counsel offered by John le Carré's fictitious traitor in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: Secret services, he explains, are 'the only real measure of a nation's political health, the only real expression of the subconscious.'---Gene Seymour, Bookforum-- "Publishers Weekly"
[Maxwell] brilliantly and chillingly examines how for 50 years Hoover and the FBI monitored the literary production of African American writers. . . . The volume reads like a detective thriller as it uncovers what Maxwell calls the 'ghostreading' practices of the FBI.-- "Choice"
