Baldwin addresses the history of his friendship with Richard Wright and explores his feelings about the important literary figure and their relationship. Baldwin reviews the stories in Wright’s Eight Men, using the critique as a platform to discuss his history with the author.

Baldwin’s disagreements with Wright began early. The younger writer felt that his mentor was more interested in his relationships with white people than speaking the truth about the experiences of Black people. Baldwin watched as Wright alienated more and more friends toward the end of his life, which he partly attributes to the unique and intense pressure that came with being a Black writer at this point in history:

It is still not possible to overstate the price a Negro pays to climb out of obscurity—for it is a particular price, involved with being a Negro; and the great wounds, gouges, amputations, losses, scars, endured in such a journey cannot be calculated (205).

Despite its tumultuous ending, their friendship was cordial at the beginning. Wright encouraged and supported Baldwin as a writer. When Baldwin mentioned Wright in an essay titled “Everybody’s Protest Novel,” Wright took it as a personal attack. Baldwin acknowledges that he used Wright’s work to springboard his own career, and he regrets that they never reconciled while Wright was alive.