Putting Modernism Together: Literature, Music, and Painting, 1872–1927 by Daniel Albright (review)
an "expendable commodity" for Vivaldo, Rufus's Irish-Italian lover, to contemplate his own racial shortcomings (98). Brim's analysis of an especially poignant scene in which Vivaldo lies in bed with Rufus and feels as if "[Rufus wants] me to take him in my arms" highlights what Brim calls "hetero-raced paralysis," represented by Vivaldo's inability to recognize Rufus's humanity and therefore love him (101). Brim is at his best here, laying bare the nexus of gender, sexuality, and race. The final chapter of James Baldwin and the Queer Imagination undergoes a slight shift in focus. Brim turns his attention to three of Baldwin's short stories: "The Rockpile," "The Man Child," and "Going to Meet the Man." This chapter also diverges from the conceptual structure of the previous chapters, as Brim reflects on the white heterosexual male's inability to reproduce a "white paternal legacy" and the fear that this procreative failure generates (131). This trio of stories exposes the "price of the white ticket" as mothers all but disappear and white men "intent on securing their own paternal positions in the procreative order" take center stage. Although nimble, the fourth chapter does not carry the same avant-garde intellectualism of Brim's earlier chapters. While some may take issue with Brim's assertion that Baldwin's lack of writerly engagement with black gay writers evidences a disavowal of black gay identities, James Baldwin and the Queer Imagination provides a refreshingly curious look into the writings of a man who has come to symbolize black gay brilliance through its reconstruction of Baldwin as a decidedly enigmatic figure. More broadly speaking, Brim's text raises questions about the writer's responsibility to his audience. The insight Brim presents is worthy of a place on any upper-level queer theory or Africana Studies syllabus. It will, of course, make it onto mine.