Savage Holiday

Originally published in paperback in 1954 by Avon, Savage Holiday represents Wright's attempt to transcend the label of "Black writer." The novel's main characters are white, and the only Black character is Erskine Fowler's maid, Minnie, who appears only briefly.

Erskine Fowler has just retired -- actually has been quietly forced to retire -- after thirty years with Longevity Life Insurance, but his first day of retirement begins with his venturing naked into the hallway for the morning paper only to be locked out by a gust of wind. Erskine's terror leads him to stumble blindly onto a balcony where he accidentally knocks a young boy to his death. This event begins a chain of anxiety, shame, and rage in which Erskine first befriends and then savagely slaughters the boy's mother, Mabel Blake.

In an interview with Raymond Barthes for French radio in 1956, Wright said that "in this novel, I have attempted to deal with what I consider as the most important problem white people have to face: their moral dilemma"[1]. Wright said of Fowler, the protagonist, that "the very fact that he feels he is free, free from any compelling obligation, is for him the most terrifying thing that ever befell him"[2].

[1]Kinnamon, Kenneth, and Fabre, Michel. Conversations with Richard Wright. Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press, 1993: 167.
[2]ibid. 167.