Looking for Lorraine

Looking for Lorraine by Imani Perry

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Imagine you are lying in a field of grass as evening falls. Imperceptibly, even as the light goes noticeably dimmer and dimmer all around, the dew is also tracing its change over the surface of the moment’s reality. It’s with a kindred subtlety that Imani Perry tells the story of Lorraine Hansberry. Of course the writing of the famous playwright’s masterpiece A Raisin in the Sun is documented, as are Hansberry’s other creative works and early life experiences that informed their writing, but Perry tells many other stories amidst and through what might seem like the “main” story.

One story Perry tells is of Hansberry’s political engagement and activism. Raised in stable, even upper class circumstances by striving, capitalist parents, Hansberry herself eschewed this path in favor of becoming an artist and communist, committing her efforts as an organizer, thinker, and activist in service of anti-capitalist and anti-racist causes. Another dimension of Hansberry’s life which Perry sensitively layers amongst the rest is Hansberry’s lesbian identity. While never out publically, Hansberry had multiple relationships with women, wrote fiction for “homophile” and lesbian journals, and identified as a homosexual in her private writing. Perry covers Hansberry’s sexuality and relationships with a sensitive awareness of the balance between privacy and transparency—she always makes clear what of her writing is conjecture, what has basis in documentation, and what she is not commenting on altogether out of respect for the privacy of the parties who may have been involved.

The biography Perry crafts is one which doesn’t exclude glimpses of memoir. Perry frankly and tenderly writes of the meaning Hansberry has had in her own life: the way her father especially admired Hansberry and the importance of that connection; the way tracing parts of Hansberry’s life felt like a pilgrimage. These passages weren’t intrusive but rather added shine and dimension to a book already well-researched and clearly written, a cohesive, exciting account of Lorraine Hansberry’s political work, artistic work, friendships and other relationships, and ultimately her death and legacy.

Subjects this book includes which some readers may be sensitive to: racism, racist violence.