In the Heat of the Night (1965) by John Ball

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

In the Heat of the Night (1965)

by John Ball

Wells, South Carolina

South Carolina: 12/16

  I am inching towards closing out Virginia/North and South Carolina.  In the Heat of the Night was a welcome respite from the parade of sad girls that populate a majority of the 1,001 Novels project and it's a certified classic as well- I checked out the Penguin Classics 50th anniversary edition from the library.  My sense is that In the Heat of the Night has been soft-dropped out of any applicable canon because it's a book with a black protagonist written  by a white guy AND because the white characters use the n-word like it is going out of style throughout the book- they are an obviously unsympathetic bunch, but I swear, there is an n word on almost every of the 150 pages of In the Heat of the Night,  It's hard to imagine a contemporary reader stomaching the rough language without taking offense (or wanting to read a similar book written by a black author).  

  The black police detective from Pasadena- Virgil Tibbs- is a very pre-1960's type of fellow- always careful not to give offense to his racist white hosts, even as the n bombs explode around him. The idea that Tibbs would want to help these people solve a murder seemed laughable to me.