Word: goyen
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...FAIR SISTER by Wi//iam Goyen. 104 pages. Doub/eday...
...store-front churches of evangelical sects in the Negro ghettos of great cities in the eastern U.S. is almost unknown to literature for the simple reason that both priests and parishioners are not literary people; often, indeed, they are barely literate. James Baldwin was a notable exception. But William Goyen, a white, 42-year-old Texan who never tried to save anybody, gives a far more readable and enjoyable account of Negro evangelists than Baldwin...
...autobiographical anguish, evokes all the prophetic frenzies of the author's Harlem childhood and violently scorns-at the same time that it demands respect for-his abandoned pulpit. Baldwin is the insider looking out. Many people, and this includes all who read for enjoyment, will prefer Goyen-the outsider looking in. When he looks in at the theological thimbleriggers of the clapboard cathedrals, he makes it clear that-as with purple cows-he would rather see than...
...Goyen's considerable art has in it something of the exotic fantasy of Ronald Firbank and something of the rough native humor of Ring Lardner-that cruel popular satirist who asked nobody to love his self-convicted subjects...
...William Goyen's review in the New York Times Book Review: "'A valentine'! Now, wasn't that a bitchy word...