Native Son
Richard Wright's 1940 novel opens in a one-room apartment on Chicago's South Side, where twenty-year-old Bigger Thomas wakes up, kills a rat with a skillet in front of his terrified family, and goes off to interview for a job as a chauffeur for the rich white Daltons on the other side of the city. By the end of his first night on the job, the Daltons' Communist-sympathizing daughter Mary is dead in her own bed, suffocated almost by accident, and Bigger has decided to bluff his way through with a kidnapping note. Wright tracks the manhunt that follows, the brutal trial, and Bigger's slow, partial coming to consciousness in a death-row cell, with extended courtroom speeches by his Communist lawyer Boris Max about the conditions that produce a Bigger Thomas. The novel was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection in 1940 and remains one of the most cited books in American literature on race and class.
Themes & atmosphere
What you might want to know about Native Son
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Twenty-year-old Bigger Thomas takes a job as a chauffeur for a wealthy white Chicago family. The night of his first shift, an accident in the daughter's bedroom upends his life. The novel walks him to the courtroom.
Native Son was written by Richard Wright and published in 1940. It is considered one of the foundational works of African American literature and was the first novel by a Black author to be a Book-of-the-Month Club main selection.
Yes. Native Son has been challenged and banned in many American schools throughout its history, primarily for violence, language, and disturbing subject matter. It remains widely taught in literature and African American studies courses.
Native Son is 399 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Native Son takes most readers 6 to 9 hours to finish.
Native Son is a standalone novel by an unknown author, not part of a series.
Native Son is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.