A Queer Finale: Sympathy and Privacy in Wright’s A Father’s Law

Abstract

Richard Wright’s posthumously published fragment, A Father’s Law, is, in many respects, a queer work. Tommy Turner, the protagonist’s son, is the text’s most queer figure; his father, Ruddy Turner, repeatedly thinks to himself that his son is “queer” because of his perplexing philosophical ideas and his carefully guarded personal privacy, and when Tommy becomes the primary suspect for a series of killings, the question of whether he might be sexually queer arises as well. Queerer still, in terms of Wright’s oeuvre, is the life and career of Ruddy Turner, a veteran black police officer who has risen in the ranks of the Chicago police force to his latest assignment, chief of police of the affluent white municipality, Brentwood Park. Wright’s treatment of the police department is unlike any other in his body of writing. There is no corruption, no police brutality, and most strange of all, no mention of anti-black racism. Quite the contrary, Ruddy is treated with unqualified respect at every level, from fellow cops who repeatedly say they are happy to “serve” him, all the way to the mayor, a white man, who invites him to dine with his family at his home.¹ Respect and sympathy flow among the officers to such an extent that it can only be called sentimental. When the police commissioner offers Ruddy his new position, a crowning professional achievement and symbolic triumph over Chicago’s historical racism, Ruddy cries unreservedly before “whisper[ing] fervently: ‘Bill, I’ll do it for you or die trying.’ ”