NEveryoneOs life begins on a level where races, armies, and churches stop. And yet everyoneOs life is always shaped by races, churches, and armiesOIn these eight extraordinary stories of love, conflict, desperation and fear, James Baldwin shows people trapped by the roles they must play in society, and those who try and escape them.From the child in NThe RockpileO whose God-fearing father will not forgive his illegitimacy, to the adolescent who hides his sexuality from his community in NThe OutingO, and from the down-and-out jazz pianist recovering from addiction in NSonnyOs BluesO to the chilling initiation of a racist in NGoing to Meet the ManO, these tales, first published in 1965, explore the subtle and profound wounds that discrimination leaves O both in its victims and its perpetrators. NHe uses words as the sea uses wavesO Langston Hughes'Few, it seems to me, have driven their words with such passion' Guardian