Pointing Out Glaring Errors In An Author's Biography

Edward Margolies, Professor Emeritus
c/o English & American Studies Dept.
The College of Staten Island of the City University of
New York
2800 Victory Boulevard
Staten Island, NY 10314
December 31, 1999

Dear Professor Margolies:

In The Several Lives of Chester Himes (University Press of Mississippi, 1997), which you co-authored with the French scholar Michel Fabre, I spotted four glaring factual errors in an otherwise enjoyable and informative book.

The errors are the following:

1. Joseph Levin, the film producer. Pp. 124 and 125. CORRECTION: Joseph E. Levine.
2. Rosa Meta's beauty parlor. Pg. 125. CORRECTION: Rose Morgan's beauty parlor.
3. "Lewis Micheaux's famous bookstore across the street from the Theresa Hotel,...." Pg. 125. CORRECTION: the bookstore was located down the street, at 125th Street and Lenox Avenue.
4. Ishmael Reed's novel, Yellow Black Radio Broke Down. Pg. 149. CORRECTION: Yellow Back Radio Broke Down. The incorrect title also appears in the index.

Maybe in a future edition of the book these errors can be corrected.

Sincerely yours,
Charles Michael Smith

Note: There was no response to this letter.

A Sidewalk Debate In Harlem

As I was coming out of a supermarket on Lenox Avenue in Harlem one night recently, I overheard two panhandlers (one of them in a wheelchair) debating whether or not God made ugliness. "If God made pretty," insisted the one who was standing, "then He made ugly, too." The conversation brought to mind something Chester Himes wrote (facetiously) in one of his Coffin Ed Johnson/Grave Digger Jones Harlem detective novels: Harlem is the only place where you can get into an argument about whether Paris was in France or France was in Paris.