Chicago-born author Lorraine Hansberry was one of the most significant playwrights of the twentieth century. In 1959, her work A Raisin in the Sun became the first play written by a Black woman to be performed on Broadway. Its brilliance has never dimmed: the play continues to be performed regularly on both professional and amateur stages, and the text of Hansberry’s script is widely read in high schools and colleges throughout America. In the past few years, Hansberry’s life history has received increasing attention, spawning publications including a sparkling new biography by the acclaimed literary biographer Charles J. Shields.

Shields has carefully sifted through not only Hansberry’s play scripts but a wide array of her personal correspondence, allowing him to focus attention on aspects of the playwright’s life analyzed less rigorously in previous scholarship. The biographer’s framing of Hansberry’s life history within its historical context is one of the strongest features of the book. In early chapters, Shields explores the Great Migration when millions of African Americans escaped the violent racism of the rural South in hopes of finding increased freedom and increased economic opportunities in the urban North. In later chapters, Shields considers how Hansberry’s personal experiences fit into larger movements of her day, from anti-nuclear activism to the politics of interracial marriage, from lesbian visibility to controversies about the portrayal of Black folk culture.

When Hansberry was young, her family lived on the South Side of Chicago where Lorraine’s father worked in the residential real estate business. After a period of collecting rent from black tenants, he eventually became a speculator, purchasing old buildings and subdividing the floor plans in order to create small “kitchenettes” with only one bathroom per thirty or more residents. This division scheme meant that Hansberry earned triple or quadruple the amount of rent than the previous layout would bring in. “The flood of black newcomers seeking shelter meant that just about anything habitable would be snapped up,” explains Shields. “Tenements that formerly held sixty families now held three hundred.”

When a teacher asked the young Lorraine what her father did, she answered that he was a real estate “magnet.” The teacher, knowing how much residential speculators had harmed their community, corrected her: instead of a magnate, he was “a maggot.” This kind of rejection by her teacher and classmates left Lorraine in tears, unsure of her place in society.

One of the most brilliant aspects of Shields’s study is its nuance, a tone that is possible primarily because of the author’s willingness to grapple with the inconsistencies and even contradictions he finds threaded through his subject’s life. For example, Shields explores the complicated analysis of class throughout the playwright’s life. Lorraine’s upbringing among the Black elite—possible only because of her father’s profits from speculation--allowed her access to advanced education and even her eventual move to New York. Shields suggests that while Hansberry remained personally aligned to a culture of middle-class respectability, she eventually realized that respectability was an ineffective way to achieve justice. Although she continued for the rest of her life to receive benefits from her economic status, she came to understand that capitalism was an “unjust economic system,” as she said, that degraded Blacks as well as all other human beings. Radical action was necessary, Hansberry believed. She became an active proponent of socialism and a participant in various activities of the Communist Party.

In the heyday of her involvement with protest movements, Hansberry wrote scripts that seemed to be “trying to fashion an argument into a play,” as Shields writes—that is, “to shine a light on a controversial topic.” Hansberry herself was more caustic about the goal: the way she had written her early plays was by “putting picket signs on the stage,” and none of her readers “got anything out of it.”

A Raisin in the Sun, she decided, would be different. This time, she wanted to create a realistic story about the limited choices of Black families, full of characters the audience would care about. She wanted to write about people living in poverty, but she didn’t have much personal experience of their lives: “I have never wanted for anything,” she admitted. She decided to write the story of “an American family’s conflict with certain of the mercenary values of its society”—a theme she knew all too well from her own childhood. Shields suggests that Raisin was perhaps a kind of atonement for Lorraine: an effort to “humaniz[e] the people whom Hansberry Enterprises dehumanized in the kitchenettes.”

Lorraine Hansberry recognized that fundamentally, the only way to resist injustice was to recognize the dignity of all fellow human beings, and to understand that dignity is what unifies us even when we seem to be separated by race or class or gender or sexuality. Theatre, she knew, was one tool to help us see that dignity in each other. Shields portrays Hansberry as a woman who was very much of her time and situation, but who was also a true visionary.

The author has some moments where you start to question their credibility to think critically about the world but otherwise this was a satisfying read.

This time period in which the civil rights movement began to change social norms, also created an exodus of whites to the suburbs. This is a a slow read with a plethora of footnotes, that represents a deluge of research. At times I had trouble understanding what the author was quoting or saying in the literature or letters of correspondence between Hansberry and acquaintances. As stated by the author; She was a partner in Hansberry Enterprises and a part owner of slums, which would eventually cause her unhappiness and embarrassment. Lorraine came from a family poised of exceptionally educated and upper middle class respectable people who believed in self-help. I was very surprised at the dealings of Lorraine’s father, Carl Hansberry, being a landlord in the black belt crippled its community, by raising rent and chopping up the rooms, and doing away with the upkeep. However, his efforts to make additional housing was commendable, but this led to a court trial of possession of property by misuse of the law. The court case of Hansberry v. Lee was settled in a Supreme Court ruling.

I became bored at times with the communist activities and was emotional about the racism and segregation. The facts and research that Shields put into writing this book is outstanding, but very thesis in nature and less frankly written. Overall, it has a very sound textbook like feel.

It was interesting to read about Lorraine’s self-exile from Chicago to escape the reign and fines under Mayor Daley’s administration, charging the Hansberry’s as slum lords.

As Shields wrote, Her aim was to depict the humanity of the people under an economic system she wanted to overturn, capitalism, to replace it with socialism. Hansberry wrapped her ideology inside an engaging story. Charles Shields presents Lorraine Hansberry as a celebrity and a compassionate thinker in her own right. He gives the reader the inside view of her relationship with her husband, Bob Nemiroff, activism, and artist. Her friendships with the renaissance era of writers and thinkers, such as James Baldwin, and Alain Locke.

The description of how the play was reviewed by critics while at the restaurant Sardis, was descriptive and eventful. As a reader, I felt like I was amongst the crowd anticipating a reading. Today, the National Theater lists A Raisin in the Sun as one of the one hundred most significant works of the twentieth century.

“…I believe that white people are dreadfully ignorant of Negro life in America.”
- Lorraine Hansberry.

This is a profound statement that rings true in this day and time, 2022. Overall I found this book a great read and I highly recommend it. At the time of this reading, I have not seen the play in its entirety, nor had I read the book. I've since purchased two books to read in her honor. Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays, A Raisin In The Sun/The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window.

Thank you Netgalley and Henry Holt and Co. for a copy of this biography in exchange for an honest review. I loved watching the actor Denzel Washington in the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. I always wanted to know more about the playwright, Hansberry, and what it was like to craft such a wonderful story. It was fascinating to read about Hansberry's early life and what inspired her to write.

Lorraine Hansberry: The Life Behind A Raisin In The Sun (2022) captures the story of Lorraine Hansberry as never before. Hansberry rose to celebrity acclaim with her award-winning Broadway play “A Raisin In The Sun” (1959). This superb incisive narrative is written by Charles J, Shields, the multi-award- winning NYT bestselling biographer of Harper Lee, Kurt Vonnegut, John Edward Williams and others. Shields is the co-founder of Biographers International Organization (est. 2009-) that promotes the biographical arts and studies.

Lorraine Hansberry (1930-65) was the youngest of four children raised in a Chicago middle-higher income family. Lorraine’s college educated parents were both professionally and politically connected, her father had once campaigned (unsuccessfully) for public office. With a tendency to romanticize poverty, culture shock was evident as Lorraine arrived in Harlem after finishing college to live near “her people” (1950’s). Harlem was the largest community of black Americans in the nation, 87,000 migrants had arrived from the American South (1920-30) and thousands of people lived on single city blocks.
Lorraine was hired as the associate editor of “Freedom” the first black American newspaper in the United States (est.1951-55). As a “warrior” Lorraine opposed all forms of racism and discrimination against black Americans while supporting socialism related to Communism and Marxist ideology. McCarthyism and the “Red Scare” fear gripped the nation (1950-55). Lorraine, a bold outspoken activist at demonstrations and rallies (FBI agents were visibly writing down car license plate numbers) and was closely monitored by the FBI. Shields explains why so many lost reputations and jobs and noted the impact on Lorraine’s life.
A highly serious couple, Lorraine and her white Jewish intellectual husband Bob Nemiroff (m.1953-64) didn’t think twice about attending a candlelight vigil following the historic Rosenthal Execution on the eve of their wedding. Lorraine flourished under Bob’s guidance, he encouraged her to reach for her highest potential in writing and the arts at all times and remained her most significant and closest mentor/collaborator throughout her life.
Bob’s dedication to Lorraine included a full acceptance of the complexities of her sexual preference/orientation which sealed his unconditional love for her. Thankfully, Shields avoided over analyzing Lorraine’s experimental writing for “The Ladder” (the first national lesbian publication). A chapter was called “The Invisible Lesbian”— Lorraine knew how to conduct herself in an oppressive racist and homophobic society and living an authentic life would become most important her. It was here that readers gained additional insight and understanding of Lorraine and Bob’s unconventional marriage/relationship.
Lorraine didn’t live that far from the black feminist poet Audre Lorde (1934-92) though never met her. Other than Bob, her closest friend was the iconic author/critic James Baldwin (1924-87). Lorraine disagreed with his positive viewpoint of Malcolm X and felt the Nation of Islam too closely identified with black nationalism. Lorraine was highly critical of Norman Mailer’s essay, “The White Negro” and felt the popular Beats Movement was “nothingism” without direction or purpose. When invited by Bob’s friends to an art gallery featuring Abstract Expressionism, Lorraine rudely made disparaging remarks about the art pieces and was “curtly” told to shut-up. Due to her Marxist beliefs, she felt that artistic expression must have a value to society.

This is the third significant Hansberry biography released since 2018, and it is impressive the way Shields avoided the rehashing of previous material. Bob’s influence on Lorraine’s work was obvious, a biographical theme illustrated the blending of Lorraine and Bob’s artistic temperaments and creative gifts that fostered their extraordinary success in their life and careers. Robert Nemiroff (1929-91) spent a large portion of his life preserving Lorraine’s legacy. **With thanks to Henry Holt via NetGalley for the DDC for the purpose of review.

The book begins with family Hansberry's family history, going back to her grandfather. At first, the information seems superfluous, but history influenced Hansberry's view of the world and thus her writing. Hansberry grew up in Chicago where her father built a real estate business as a landlord in with small kitchenette apartments. Red-lining prevented Hansberry from "legally" buying / occupying additional real estate in the more middle class part of the city. Mr. Hansberry's personal and legal fight against racist laws and the real perils of death threats to the family were part of her upbringing. Racism was not only inescapable, it was legislated.

At the University of Wisconsin, Lorraine studied both journalism and theater. Seeing the Irish play, "Juno and the Paycock". Hansberry saw a parallel between the play's Irish family's oppression and the oppression of American Black people.

The Progressive Party encapsulated the tenor of her ideals, and she became committed to it. Lorraine openly referred to herself as a Radical American.

In Harlem, Hansberry was peers with Langstone Hughes and James Baldwin (among others). Her creativity and need to write only became stronger. It was there that Hansberry penned the play, "A Raison in the Sun". She had permission from Langstone Hugues to use the line from Langstone's poem, “What is to happen to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raison in the sun?

Some personal stories of Hansberry’s are only hinted at and not fleshed out. I choose to forgive this and applaud the author’s ability to portray the importance of Hansberry’s writing and the importance of outspoken politics of her time. Indeed, there is much work still to be done.

Lorraine Hansberry was positioned to have access to the front lines of the Harlem Renaissance and the racial hotbed that was the 20th century in the United States. Shields provides a close look at the person and the culture that produced A Raisin in the Sun. The book would be an excellent resource for students of American literature, black history, or drama. Many details included shed light on not only Hansberry’s classic play, but on the social and cultural contexts from which it emerged.

Thank you to Charles J. Shields, Henry Holt & Co., and NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

I have read Mr. Shields before and know him to be an exemplary biographer. He isn't afraid to speak the truth and not hide behind what he calls "continuity" for the sake of the narrative and it is that way of thinking that helps him with this biography of Lorraine Hansberry. I am sure there will be quite a few people who read this that will be surprised at what they find between the covers of this book. I was surprised at what I read, but most of that was because outside of knowing that she wrote "A Raisin in the Sun", I knew nothing else about Lorraine Hansberry and to be honest, what I read did not endear me to her. I found I didn't really like the woman who wrote one of the most titular plays in the American lexicon [one that moved me beyond measure when I first read it in High School - I had no idea that a play could evoke such emotions in a person and it has never left me]. She was a mass of contradictions [loved the middle class life, but also loved the idea of Marxism and communism, though she left those readily enough when they fell out of fashion; she loved her husband, but also loved women and had several relationships with them] and at time seems like not a very nice person [though once you read about her family and her slum-lord father, you will not be surprised that she is the way she was], though I doubt that knowing people didn't like her would have bothered her much - she didn't do what she did for popularity or admiration. The one person she truly wanted love and affection and adoration from was her husband Bob Nemiroff and he was never fully able to give that to her [what she got from him was a really crazy co-dependent relationship and was at time, completely controlled by him] and in the end, I liked him even less than she. What he does at the end of her life is nothing short of criminal in my way of thinking and how he handles things after her death is close to disgusting. It is no wonder most of her friends didn't like him.

Very well written and meticulously researched, this was a good book over-all [though it took me twelve days to read it - the chapters are massively long and I often got bored mid-chapter with a lot of the "fluff" that I just didn't find important - not that it wasn't, I just didn't see the point of it] and I cannot say her life wasn't interesting, from the beginning and right up to the end[even the parts I didn't agree with and the parts that completely baffled me] and it is a story that will absolutely stay with me, much like the play has for all these years.

Thank you to NetGalley, Charles J. Shields, and Henry Holt and Company for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Lorraine Hansberry is an icon who we lost to soon. As a person who loves the play Raisin in the Sun it was great to read about her and how this wonderful piece of work came to be.

While Lorraine Hansberry lived only 34 years, her play A Raisin in The Sun has had a lasting impact on the American theatre. In Lorraine Hansberry: The Life Behind A Raisin in the Sun by Charles J. Shields, the author chronicles the life of the playwright and activist. Called “the most widely anthologized, read, and performed play of the American stage,” students across America were led to believe that Hansberry based her famous play on her own life. Well, she did, kind of.

Actually, her father Carl Hansberry was a bit of a scoundrel. Yes, the Hansberrys were not welcome in a white neighborhood, but they had their real home in a black neighborhood, while they masqueraded in this second home. This episode was part of a scheme to drive whites away so Carl could purchase property cheaply and could start chopping up floors, turning apartments into one-room “kitchenettes” to make more money for the landlord, which eventually he became. About 10% of the book covers his moneymaking slumlord schemes, which projected the Hansberrys into the middle class. He also became so enamored with suing other folks that the Chicago branch of the NAACP began backing away from him after he threatened to sue Goldblatt’s department stores.

No doubt legitimate Raisin stories happened due to restrictive covenants designed to keep black homeowners out of white neighborhoods, but Raisin was not truly the Hansberry situation. The wealth generated with Hansberry Sr.’s property speculation schemes enabled the lifestyle that Lorraine was able to enjoy including some college attendance and a regular check from her widowed mother to help support Lorraine’s New York City lifestyle. Besides playwriting, she kept her day job writing for and performed a number of other duties for a newspaper called Freedom.

The biography broadens the scope of Lorraine’s life from the sliver as playwright that students in America learned when studying Raisin to all her activities in social causes. She campaigned for Progressive Party candidate Henry A. Wallace and had close Communist ties, which caused J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI to keep an eye on her for fear she would become, “in the language of counterintelligence, a ‘present danger.’” By the end of her short life, Lorraine would have thousands of pages in her FBI dossier.

Regarding her personal life, Shields takes a hard look at the man Lorraine married, Bobby Nemiroff, a Jewish-Russian activist, a Communist card-carrying one. Shields described their marriage as a codependency. He was Lorraine’s best friend, her critic, and her promoter. They would remain tied even after their divorce, and he went on to manage her estate after her death.

Charles J. Shields is the author of two biographies about Harper Lee, one for adults, Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee, and for young readers, I Am Scout: The Biography of Harper Lee. He is known for his well-documented biographies.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting December 16, 2021.

I would like to thank Henry Holt & Company and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

This text has been selected for the BackStage Book Club, and this portal will be updated with the review upon publication.

When I taught 8th grade, I always had students read A Raisin in the Sun. The students loved the characters and their story. However, I confess that my own knowledge of Lorraine Hansberry was limited. This biography changed that for me!

I loved how Shields began with her father and established him in Chicago. His job and personality helped set the stage for how Lorraine's family would be structured. I understand her more now as a playwright now that I've learned her story. I also enjoyed how much he delved into her personal life, even the hidden pieces. These two aspects really helped define how she wrote and why she wrote.

She died tragically young from pancreatic cancer. I cannot help but wonder what she would be doing today. Well worth the read!