This book focuses on Baldwin's experiences as a gifted black writer who fought valiantly against racism and wrote openly about homosexual relationships. Baldwin's God is a 'mysteriously impersonal' force he calls love- 'something . . . like a fire, like the wind, something which can change you.'

Table of Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations 1. Introduction 2. Credo 3. Born in a Christian Culture 4. 'In Search of a Majority' 5. Scarred by the Rock 6. Opening the Unusual Door 7. Coming out the Wilderness 8. Weighing Your Gods and You 9. Declining to 'Imitate the Son of the Morning' 10. That Train's Long Gone 11. The Black Issue of the Holy Ghost 12. Ain't Nothing but Us Up the Road 13. A Miracle of Coherence and Release 14. Postscript ?