If Beale St. Could Talk
James Balwin's Book Comes to the Screen
If Beale Street Could Talk was the prolific writer James Baldwin‘s fifth novel and 13th book. A love story set in Harlem in the early 70s, it was once described by author Joyce Carol Oates as a “moving, painful but ultimately optimistic story.”
It opens with 19-year-old Tish and her lover Fonny, a 22-year-old sculptor, deeply in love. After they get engaged she becomes pregnant. It should be a happy time for the young couple, but considering the state of race relations in New York City in the early 70s, things go very wrong from there. Fonny is set up by a racist cop and falsely accused of raping a Puerto Rican woman, resulting in unjust jail time. With the help of family and friends, Tish races against time to try to prove Fonny’s innocence and set him free before the baby is born.
If this sounds like it would make a exciting film, indeed it is! Barry Jenkins, one of our favorite directors of 2016 and the man behind the Academy Award-winning film, Moonlight, is writing and directing the screen adaptation. Newcomer KiKi Layne stars at Tish and the devastatingly talented Stephan James (Race and Selma) plays the unfortunate Fonny. Expect lots of drama and heartbreaking situations for this loving pair, but rising up from the hate, a sense of hope.
As James Baldwin himself once said about his book, “Every poet is an optimist. But on the way to that optimism you have to reach a certain level of despair to deal with your life at all.”
During the month of April, The New York Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment has launched the initiative One Book, One New York, where New Yorkers vote for one of five books that they all want to read together. This year, If Beale Street Could Talk is on that honorable list (the others are White Tears by Hari Kunzru, Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan, Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue, and When I was in Puerto Rico by Esmeralda Santiago). To learn more, go to: http://www1.nyc.gov/site/mome/initiatives/1book1ny.page
If Beale Street Could Talk, the film, will be released this fall.
