User:Maria.Draexl/The Conjure-Man Dies


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The Conjure Man Dies is a mystery novel by the Harlem Renaissance author Rudolph Fisher. Published in 1932 it was the first known mystery novel written by an African American author that contained an all-black cast and multiple detective figures. It is considered a forerunner to the fiction of Chester Himes, Valery Wesley Wilson, Walter Mosley, and Barbara Neely.

Plot
During a cold winter night in Harlem Jinx Jenkins consults the fortune teller and “conjure man“ N’Gana Frimbo. The session takes place in an unlit room, thus Jinx can only hear the psychist. After a while the voice breaks off and as soon as Jinx turns on the light he realizes that Frimbo is dead. He calls his friend Bubber Brown who seeks professional advice with the physician Dr. John Archer. The doctor discovers a head wound and assumes that Frimbo has been murdered whereupon Detective Perry Dart takes over the case. Dr. Archer and Perry Dart team up and start to investigate. While they are questioning the suspects they reveal the everyday problems of the Harlem residents: Mrs. Snead tries to keep her husband from drinking; Easly Jones fears that his girl-friend is cheating on him; Spider Webb is involved in a gang war and Doty Hicks is addicted to drugs. Also Bubber Brown is initially suspected of being the perpetrator, but Perry Dart soon realizes that Brown is able to assist them in solving the case because he is familiar with the “darkest” corners in Harlem.

An unexpected turning point follows: Frimbo is alive. That raises the question who was murdered in his stead. N’Gana Frimbo gets involved in the investigation and searches for his own, unsuccessful murderer. Eventually Archer and Dart find out that the murdered man is N’Ogo Frimbo, N’Gana’s servant and they start to suspect the conjure man to be the delinquent. In the end, Frimbo convicts Samuel Crouch of having killed his servant, but only because Crouch succeeds in committing the murder originally intended. He wanted to take revenge for N’Gana Frimbo having an affair with his wife.

Setting
The entire novel is set in Harlem in the 1930s. By picking this notorious borough, Fisher enabled himself to issues race, class and identity within the genre of the detective novel.) In a radio interview in 1933, Rudolph Fisher explains his decision:

“Darkness and mystery go together, don’t they? […] The very setting is mystery – outsiders know nothing of Harlem life as it really is… what goes behind the scenes and beneath the dark skins of Harlem folk – fiction has not found much of that yet. And much of it is perfectly in tune with the best of mystery tradition – variety, color, mysticism, superstition, malice and violence” (Soitos 1996, p. 100)

Fisher presents various facets of Harlem and its inhabitants: from academia to middle class to working class to gang members.