Yale University Press, 1968. This critical essay praises James Baldwin's talent as an essayist. He says Baldwin shows the effects of race relations have on blacks in American society. Bone delivers a detailed account of Baldwin's childhood growing up in Harlem and mentions Baldwin's religious crisis at fourteen years old, a subject touched upon in The Fire Next Time . Next Time is protest, defaming the white oppressors of the past.
Bone then states that The Fire Next Time is concerned with the emotion of shame.
Cooke, Michael G. Afro American Literature in the Twentieth Century. Yale University Press, 1984. This portion of the book deals with the internalized acceptance of name-calling by whites in America. Baldwin was praised as a writer by most of the black community because he was the preeminent black literary spokesman of the time. He was the model whom all other aspiring African-American writers tried to emulate.