If Beale Street Could Talk Lesson Plan

If Beale Street Could Talk is James Baldwin's sixth novel. Published in 1974, the story follows Tish and Fonny as they navigate Fonny's imprisonment for a crime he was falsely convicted of. Baldwin touches on the greater themes of racism and fear, mass incarceration, the importance of familial support, poverty, and structural injustice. This work deviates from Baldwin's other writings in that there are no white protagonists, no interracial love, and no homoerotic love. It is also the only Baldwin novel with a female narrator. Joyce Carol Oates, in a review for The New York Times, described the novel as "a moving, painful story" but "ultimately optimistic. It stresses the communal bond...