Yesterday Will Make You Cry

Praise for Chester Himes’s Yesterday Will Make You Cry

“The book’s strengths lie in Himes’s unflinching ability to stare down terrible truths and his finely details portrayal of men in conditions of great adversity. . . . the novel’s emotional core continues to smolder. Rage tempered with compassion is the backbone of this story—and what makes it eminently worth reading.”
—The New York Times

“An illuminating sociological portrait of prison life—certainly one of the best available in fictional form—and adds another intriguing installment to Himes’s fascinating oeuvre.”
—Washington Post

“[Yesterday Will Make You Cry] is, most beautifully, a love story. . . . What a gift this is to American literature.”
—Buffalo News

“Deeply engrossing. . .  [A] clear-eyed tale about the brutality, physical and psychological, of prison life witha sensibility that turns agony into th epoetry of pain and loss.”
—Dallas Morning News

“[A] unique work and a fascinating one. . . . Himes has long deserved a serious reassessment, and this is a fine place to start.”
—Boston Globe

“There could not be a fitter time or place for the publication of this great prison novel than today’s United States.”
—The Nation

“A textbook performance in whic hall of HImes’s gifts come into play: the colorful characters, the ability to create a blunt reality without sacrificing an elegant style, and the trenchant commentary about blacks living in a society that is hostile ot them.”
—Ishmael Reed

“Both a superior novel and a moving fictional record of the perseverance of humanity amidst unrelenting degradation.”
—Publishers Weekly