Refinding James Baldwin

Fame after death can kill again. The historian knows this; the biographer knows this. No longer here to shape their own image, familiar figures become unknown to us. So many privacies now unguarded. The late James Baldwin, who died on the first of December in 1987, provides endlessly. You think, poring over his letters, that you are getting to know him better—the uncovered lover, et cetera—when the person you are getting to know better is yourself.