Student Companion to Richard Wright.

Felgar, Robert. Student Companion to Richard Wright. Westport: Greenwood P, 2000. 134 pp.$29.95.

This book by a veteran Wright specialist appears in a series designed for secondary schools, junior colleges, undergraduate students, and the general reader, not for professional academicians. For this purpose it should prove useful, offering a sketch of Wright's life, a chapter on his "literary heritage," individual chapters on Uncle Tom's Children, Native Son, Black Boy, The Outsider, Eight Men, and Lawd Today, followed by a bibliography of some of Wright's works and some of the important secondary works. One regrets the absence of coverage of Rite of Passage and the haiku poems, both of which should have special appeal to the intended audience, but perhaps space considerations were a factor. Different approaches to the works included will give the reader an awareness that definitive readings of literary works are not possible, but there is some straining toward political correctness. For the Wright scholar, Felgar's original "cinematic reading" of Native Son (pp.56-59) will be of considerable interest.