Go Tell It on the Mountain

A deluxe edition of James Baldwin's haunting coming-of-age story, with a new introduction by Roxane Gay and cover art featuring a stunning portrait by Baldwin’s mentor, Beauford Delaney. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's birthday and discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a Pentecostal storefront church in Harlem. Baldwin's rendering of his protagonist's spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle toward self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understood themselves.

These book club questions are from the publisher, Penguin Random House.

Book club questions for Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.

We meet John Grimes on his fourteenth birthday with the explanation that this was the day he realized he did not want to be like his father. What events solidified this decision? Have you ever felt pressure to follow in the footsteps of a parent or guardian? Share your own experience of confronting those expectations.

Reflecting on his family, John wonders, “If God’s power was so great, why were their lives so troubled?” (page 143). Describe the Grimes family. Despite being deeply concerned with living a devout life, why do you think their lives were so troubled?

Aunt Florence is the first of many characters in the novel to flee the South during the Great Migration. Why does she leave, and what events are set in motion within her family as a result of this decision? What does the North represent to the novel’s migratory characters, including Elizabeth, Richard, and Gabriel? Does New York meet their expectations?

Go Tell It on the Mountain speaks to themes of ancestry and inheritance. Reflect on Gabriel’s relationship with his sons Royal, John, and Roy. Why does he give his biological children the name Royal, and why is he troubled by the fact that only John has been saved?

Go Tell It on the Mountain is interspersed with prayers, hymns, and biblical verses as epigraphs between sections and as dialogue within chapters. Why do you think Baldwin chose to structure the novel in this way? How does this structure amplify your understanding of the totality of the church in the lives of the characters?

A recurring image in the novel is of the steep climb up the side of the mountain. What does this mountain represent? What is waiting at the top, and why is the climb so difficult? In the end, do any of the characters make it up?

Go Tell It on the Mountain Book Club Questions PDF

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“This is a distinctive book, both realistic and brutal, but a novel of extraordinary sensitivity and poetry.” —Chicago Sunday Tribune

“With vivid imagery, with lavish attention to details, Mr. Baldwin has told his feverish story.” —The New York Times

“Brutal, objective and compassionate.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“It is written with poetic intensity and great narrative skill.” —Harper’s

“A sense of reality and vitality that is truly extraordinary. . . . He knows Harlem, his people, and the language they use.” —Chicago Sun-Times