This image is the cover for the book Angry Ones

Angry Ones

The powerful and prophetic story of a talented young African American and his struggles to overcome deep-rooted racism and intolerance in post–World War II America

Ambitious and well-educated, US Army officer Steve Hill leaves California for the East Coast and his slice of the American Dream when he takes a job as publicity director at a vanity press. But mid-twentieth-century New York City harbors its own particular brand of prejudice, more secretive but just as pervasive and destructive as the racism of the Jim Crow South.

Even in the liberal, superficially hip circles of the publishing world, invisible boundaries and unspoken rules determine how high Hill can dare to reach—and whom he can love. Faced with bigotry, hypocrisy, and betrayal at every turn, this proud man struggles to maintain his principles and self-respect, knowing that at some point he’s bound to reach his breaking point.

Over the course of his long and extraordinary career, author John A. Williams wrote searing novels about the black experience in America, courageously exposing endemic racism at all levels of society. Based on his early years in Manhattan, The Angry Ones is the enthralling debut of one of the most provocative and influential voices in African American literature. 

John A. Williams

John A. Williams (1925–2015) was born near Jackson, Mississippi, and raised in Syracuse, New York. The author of more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction, including the groundbreaking and critically acclaimed novels The Man Who Cried I Am and Captain Blackman, he has been heralded by the critic James L. de Jongh as “arguably the finest Afro-American novelist of his generation.” A contributor to the Chicago Defender, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, among many other publications, Williams edited the periodic anthology Amistad and served as the African correspondent for Newsweek and the European correspondent for Ebony and Jet. A longtime professor of English and journalism, Williams retired from Rutgers University as the Paul Robeson Distinguished Professor of English in 1994. His numerous honors include two American Book Awards, the Syracuse University Centennial Medal for Outstanding Achievement, and the National Institute of Arts and Letters Award.

Open Road Integrated Media