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The Conjure-Man Dies Summary

Summary (Literary Essentials: African American Literature)
The Conjure-Man Dies is a complex mystery story interweaving a number of characters who might normally
have little contact with one another. For various reasons, the major suspects have all come to seek advice from
NGana Frimbo, an African trained at Harvard University who settled in Harlem to practice his conjuring and
fortune-telling. In the waiting room of Frimbos apartment and in the actual meeting chamber where Frimbo
conducts his practice, characters confront the darkness that is Frimbo. Jinx Jenkins, the last of the characters
to have an interview with Frimbo, realizes that Frimbo is dead, runs to the waiting room, and calls for his friend
Bubber Brown. The doctor and the police detective then enter the story.
Perry Dart, a police detective, and John Archer, a physician, lead the investigation. The novels plot is one of
ascertaining who murdered Frimbo. Like any mystery story, people and events are not always what they appear
to be. Dart is sensitive to this possibility and begins a process of questioning suspects in order to determine the
culprit. Dart and Archer know immediately that their task is not only to determine the murderer but also to
make some sense of who Frimbo is so that a motive for his murder might be found.
The novel accumulates detail on top of detail. Initial character descriptions become more fully textured, and
the actions of characters who apparently are only minor become potential sources of information needed to
solve the murder. Both Dart and Archer, as they pull the pieces of the murder together, reveal aspects of their
personalities to each other and to the major suspects. In all this detective work, Dart and Archer get to know the
suspects in ways they would not have otherwise, and both become fascinated with Frimbo.
The major vehicle Dart and Archer use to acquire information is questioning of each of the suspects in Frimbos
dark, velvet-draped meeting room. Dart sits at one end of the table, shrouded in darkness, and the suspects sit
at the other end, just as they would have with Frimbo. The suspects have a spotlight directed at them, so they
see little in the room except the detectives silhouette. In these interviews, Dart discovers what brought each of
the suspects to seek Frimbos advice. Each character reveals not only his or her own life story but also
something of the variety of black lifestyles that made up Harlem of the 1930s.
Bubber Brown is the first suspect. He is eliminated because he immediately sought Archers help after the body
was found. In addition, Brown was the only one in the waiting room who had not come to see Frimbo. Beyond
this, Brown fancies himself a private investigator and goes out of his way to help Dart and Archer solve the case.
Dart learns quickly that Brown can be used to assist in discovering the whereabouts of three suspects who have
left the crime scene, because Brown knows the underside of Harlem.
The two women, Martha Crouch and Aramintha Snead, also are eliminated fairly early as suspects. Mrs.
Crouchs reason for being present when the murder occurred was to collect Frimbos monthly rent money, and
Mrs. Snead wanted Frimbos help to stop her husband from drinking.
The other menJenkins, Spider Webb, Doty Hicks, and Easley Jonesremain suspects for quite some time
after their questioning. In their interviews with Dart and Archer, the men provide information that reveals a
complicated and rich black urban experience. Members of the Harlem community are shown to work and play
hard. Easley Jones, for example, is a Pullman car worker. Fisher shows what his lifestyle is like, describing the
different cities these men visit, their stay in boardinghouses, and where they eat. A number of nightclubs and
gambling houses are also kept busy by Harlemites. In addition, men and women struggle to maintain
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relationships.
By allowing the major suspects to tell their stories, Fisher showcases and pays homage to the rich cultural life of
Harlem. Once characters motivations are known and Dart and Archer have some sense of who these men really
are, it is easier for them to find the killer.
Fisher does not make his mystery a straightforward one. He drops a bombshell into his plot: Frimbo is not dead
after all. One man is dead, however, and his death must be solved, along with finding the reasons why someone
wanted Frimbo dead in the first place. Fisher moves the mystery forward by allowing Frimbo to assist in
discovering his own would-be murderer. The interplay of having Dart, Archer, and Frimbo, three brilliant men,
grapple with facts, suspicions, and evidence makes for a complicated unraveling of plot and a fascinating
journey into three talented tenth minds. In the process of solving the murder, these three men deal with the
basics of everyday life in Harlem.
More Content: Summary (hide)

The Conjure-Man Dies Summary (Society and Self, Critical Representations in

Literature)
In The Conjure-Man Dies: A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem, Rudolph Fisher combines his talent and comedic wit
with his knowledge of medicine to produce the first known detective novel by an African American. Fisher
introduces a variety of Harlem characters, including Jinx Jenkins and Bubber Brown, unemployed furniture
movers who also appear in The Walls of Jericho (1928). Other characters include John Archer, the doctor who
helps Harlem police solve the murder.
The complex plot highlights characters and settings popularized in Fishers works. When Jinx and Bubber
discover the murdered conjure man, they become suspects with several others: a numbers-runner, Spider
Webb, who works in Harlems illegal lottery system; a drug addict named Doty Hicks; a railroad worker; and a
church worker. Mr. Crouch, mortician and owner of the building in which the conjure man is a tenant, and
Crouchs wife Martha are quickly dismissed as suspects. When the corpse disappears and reappears as the live
conjure man, Archer and Detective Dart know that there has been a murder but are unable to find the corpse.
The conjure man is seen burning a body in the furnace. The body is of his servant, who was mistakenly killed
instead of the conjure man. The conjure man adamantly insists he is innocent and helps to set a trap for the real
murderer, but the conjure man is fatally shot by the railroad worker. Distraught that he has killed her lover,
Martha assaults the railroad man, and all discover he is none other than the avenging Mr. Crouch, in disguise.
The detective story framework of The Conjure-Man Dies does not overshadow Fishers depiction of several
issues of Harlem life. Residents of Harlem resort to creative means to survive as the Depression makes their
difficult economic situations worse. Bubber becomes a self-appointed detective for spouses who suspect their
partners are being unfaithful. The numbers racket provides a living for many, including the conjure man.
African Americans who are firsts to achieve a specific rank are under pressure to prove themselves worthy.
Such is the case for detective Dart, who privately thanks Dr. Archer for promising that the city administration
will be informed that Dart solved the murder.
Although Fishers development of the hard-boiled character may have been influenced by the detective fiction
of Dashiell Hammett, his most remarkable character is the conjure man, NGana Frimbo, a Harvard-educated
West African king who imparts the traditions of his culture to Dr. Archer. Frimbo reflects Fishers interest in the
connections among blacks in Harlem, the Caribbean, and Africa. In the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance, Fisher
creates a new path with The Conjure-Man Dies, one that would influence later writers such as Chester Himes
and Walter Mosley.
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The Conjure-Man Dies Bibliography (Literary Essentials: African American

Literature)
Berghahn, Marion. Images of Africa in Black American Literature. London: Macmillan, 1977. A consideration
of the image of the African in history and in literature. The first part of the book discusses the image of Africans
in the white imagination. The chapter titled The Harlem Renaissance presents useful information that helps
one to understand a character such as NGana Frimbo.
De Jongh, James. Vicious Modernism: Black Harlem and the Literary Imagination. Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press, 1990. Discusses major historical and literary events that helped to make Harlem a
culture capital for African Americans. Contains a fine, but relatively short, discussion of The Conjure-Man Dies
that emphasizes the novels ability to mediate black experience in Harlem of the 1930s.
Gayle, Addison, Jr. The Way of the New World: The Black Novel in America. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor
Books, 1975. Gives a good general overview of the development of the African American novel. Two chapters
help to position Rudolph Fishers work: The New Negro and The Outsider. Gayle argues that Fishers novels
advance many of Marcus Garveys ideas.
Lewis, David Levering. When Harlem Was in Vogue. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. One of the
most readable general discussions of the Harlem Renaissance. Provides ample coverage of the many people and
contexts that helped to define this period. Suggests that The Conjure-Man Dies is a breakthrough novel for
Fisher.
Perry, Margaret. A Fisher of Black Life: Short Stories by Rudolph Fisher. In The Harlem Renaissance Reexamined, edited by Victor A. Kramer and Robert A. Russ. Rev. and expanded ed. Troy, N.Y.: Whitson, 1997.
Discusses Fishers short fiction, both published and unpublished. Argues that Harlem and its spirit had an
important place in Fishers fiction. Fisher explores both urban realism and rural or African rituals and customs,
so that his works give full coverage of many parts of the African American experience, including its darker side.
Scruggs, Charles. Sexual Desire, Modernity, and Modernism in the Fiction of Nella Larsen and Rudolph
Fisher. In The Cambridge Companion to the Harlem Renaissance, edited by George Hutchinson. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2007. Examines the intersection of modern mass culture and the modernist
literary response by interpreting the representation of sex and desire in Fishers work.
Soitos, Stephen F. The Blues Detective: A Study of African American Detective Fiction. Amherst: University of
Massachusetts Press, 1996. Comprehensive overview of the history of mystery and detective fiction by African
American writers. Bibliographic references and index.

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The Conjure-Man Dies Themes

One of the most significant and obvious themes addressed in The Conjure-Man Dies is the importance of
characters living life fully. Each major character involved in the mystery, whether as suspect or investigator, is
preoccupied with living a whole and rewarding life, given the particular circumstances of his or her
environment.
Bubber Brown and Jinx Jenkins represent the common black man struggling to survive during the Depression
years in Harlem. Both are intelligent men who happen to be down on their luck. In Browns attempts first to
start his own private investigation business and then later to help Dart and Archer solve the murder, he
demonstrates his capacity to persevere even when he does not have access to the sort of employment
opportunities that might provide him with a secure lifestyle. He always has a wonderful sense of humor and
makes the best of any situation. When Jenkins is imprisoned and for a while feels despondent, it is Brown who
acquires evidence that can be used to free him.
Frimbos entire existence, whether in Africa or in America, has been one of seeking authentic meaning. He does
this by learning as much as he can about human nature and also by helping to provide peace of mind to his
clients.
Even Dart and Archer, who have rewarding careers, are positioned as struggling to stay above the waters in
their obsession to solve the murder case. Each comes a little more to life as he gets more involved in the case.
Harlem of the 1930s is revealed as a place where it is easy to give up or to stay in a despondent state. Several of
the other characters are presented as being in various stages of despondency. Doty Hicks, for example, has
turned to drugs. Several characters believe that their spouses are having affairs and therefore must not really
love them. The state of the economy and rampant racism mean sometimes unbearable conditions, which some
characters seek to escape through drinking, dancing, and gambling.
Throughout the novel, characters discover ways to reaffirm themselves. Much of this reaffirmation comes
about because characters help one another. In this sense, the novel takes time to explore the notion of kinship
in the African American experience, and it does so while keeping readers involved in a murder mystery.

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The Conjure-Man Dies Characters

The Characters (Literary Essentials: African American Literature)
One of the most complicated and original characters to appear in African American literature is NGana Frimbo,
the conjure-man. Frimbos complexity is revealed through the details offered by the author. Frimbos
mysterious nature is emphasized initially. He is very dark and tall, and he wears long, flowing, silk dressing
gowns. When he sees his clients, he usually has his head in a turban. His mysterious qualities are punctuated by
his absolute coolness. He never gets emotionally wrought over anything, including the fact that someone tried
to kill him. Although he dabbles in the occult and the unseen, he does so with the exactness of any modern
scientist. In his character, therefore, Fisher melds modern Western ways of knowing the world with Frimbos
African perceptions.
That Frimbo embodies both Western ideas and traditional African ones is made clear when he and John Archer
spend a quiet evening together. Archer is trying to ascertain information about Frimbo that will help him solve
the murder mystery, and Frimbo sees in Archer something of a kindred spirit. Like Archer, Frimbo is in his
thirties, and he is also a man of science, psychology, and philosophy. Frimbo reveals to Archer something of his
African background. Frimbo was king, or chief, of Buwongo, a tiny nation northeast of Liberia, before coming
to the United States. As a child, he attended American missionary schools. That early educational experience is
the reason he later decided to attend Harvard University. He shares several traditional African rituals with
Archer, some of them potentially life threatening and painful, involving, for example, castration and beheading.
As he tells this fragment from his life, there is pride in his voice and a longing for home. Archer observes a
gentle and compassionate quality to Frimbo and wonders to himself if Frimbo could in fact be capable of
murder.
Archer also notes that something has happened to Frimbo in his transition from Africa to America. Frimbos
acquisition of Western ideas, exactness, precision, and objectivity have made him somewhat indifferent.
Frimbo counsels people who are in need and generally gives advice that helps his clients gain peace of mind, but
there is a sense that he does not care about them personally. Archer thinks that Frimbo is largely carrying out
pseudoscientific, Western-based philosophical experiments. After Archer reaches these conclusions about
Frimbo, he is astounded when he tells Frimbo a mere snatch of information from his own life and Frimbo is able
to fill in the remaining and more important details.
By focusing on Frimbos complex and alert mind, Fisher unfolds Frimbos character. Frimbo is best rendered by
what he says and by his mysterious ways. The inter-play of minds as they solve the murder is the chief way that
characters traits and personalities are announced. Like Frimbo, Archer devotes more time to his work than to
other concerns. Archer is a bachelor who, in attending to the medical needs of the Harlem community, has little
opportunity for interpersonal relationships. He might best be described as a workaholic. Like Frimbo, Archer
has a side that is rarely expressed. He has few peers who are able to comprehend his complex philosophical
disposition. Involvement in solving the murder mystery, then, is presented as being a real treat for Archer. He
seems to come alive with every little bit of information and every new thought he must consider.
Detective Darts character is similarly presented. Although his intellect is equivalent to Frimbos and Archers,
he seems less concerned with the larger philosophical questions that the other two men pursue. Dart has the job
of solving the murder, and all is subordinate to that.
Bubber Browns and Jinx Jenkinss characters are delineated primarily through their language antics. In their
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conversations with each other and with other characters, they use language to present their essential selves and
to do battle with an environment that does not always appreciate them. Brown has aspirations to be a big man,
but in the Harlem of the 1930s, he is out of work, is not valued by many people that he knows, and sees his
helping to solve the murder as a way to make a name for himself and to help his friend Jenkins, especially after
Jenkins is jailed for the murder. Although Brown and Jenkins argue with each other all the time and play the
dozens, the two genuinely care about each other. Both are good-natured men who add both humor and social
realism to the novel.
The other suspects and characters encountered in the novel are realistically portrayed. Most characters are
round and individualized, even if they occupy only a small narrative space.
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The Conjure-Man Dies Essay - Critical Essays

As the first known mystery novel written by an African American, The Conjure-Man Dies launched a new genre in the
African American literary tradition. Many African American novels of the 1920s and 1930s were significantly a part
of the struggle to uplift the race. Rudolph Fisher dared to do something different, to create a range of possibilities
for black narrative expression. In exploring new terrain, he also revisited many areas and concerns that are staples of
African American literature.
The novel describes common black urban experience, one major line of development of the African American novel
of the 1920s and 1930s. The Conjure-Man Dies is a companion piece to such novels as Fishers The Walls of Jericho
(1928), Claude McKays Home to Harlem (1928), Wallace Thurmans The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life
(1929), and Langston Hughess Not Without Laughter (1930), which detail the rich layers of urban black experience
and chart the difficult conflicts that characters confront in their struggles to live rewarding lives.
As a black mystery novel, The Conjure-Man Dies looks forward to the detective fiction of Chester Himes and even, in
exploration of new literary territory, anticipates the novels of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison and the science-fiction
novels of Samuel Delany and Octavia E. Butler.
Most initial reviews of the novel remarked that it was a mystery of the first class. Dissenting reviews usually focused
on the fact that the mystery in Fishers novel included characters heretofore not considered a part of the mystery
genre: African Americans. Some reviewers did not know how to evaluate or appreciate Frimbo, the dark and
mysterious African who is at the novels center.

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The Conjure-Man Dies Essay - The Conjure-Man Dies

The Conjure-Man Dies
THE CONJURE-MAN DIES (1932) was long thought to be the first detective novel by an African American,
although scholars have since discovered an earlier African-American novel in this genre, published in 1901. As
an important novel in the African-American detective tradition, THE CONJURE-MAN DIES incorporates
black vernaculars such as music, language, and hoodoo into a mystery format.
Frimbo, a black conjure man, is killed during a seance in his apartment over an undertaker on 130th Street. Five
suspects (two women and three men) plus Frimbos personal servant are present. Four of the suspects are
waiting in an anteroom decorated with African artifacts. Perry Dart, New York Citys only black homicide
detective, teams up with physician John Archer to solve the case. Halfway through the investigation, Frimbo
reappears, raised if by magic from the dead. Who was killed? Frimbo springs from the African Trickster
tradition, but the novel resembles in many ways a locked room mystery of the English manor house style,
transposed to Harlem. However, its use of Harlem Renaissance themes of black pride and Afrocentrism,
combined with African-American street scenes and characters, make its themes socially conscious in the
hardboiled tradition.
Perry Dart and John Archer learn that Frimbo is an African prince with a degree from Harvard who uses
hoodoo to effect positive change in his clients lives. The murder of Frimbo leads to an investigation of an
individuals past that reflects the collective past of African Americans. Along the way we learn something about
the social and racial dynamics of Harlem and the emerging importance of the Harlem Renaissances New
Negro. Humorously written with great comic effects, THE CONJURE-MAN DIES is entertaining as well as
being an important early example of African-American detective themes.
Bibliography
Most initial reviews of remarked that it was a mystery novel of the first class. Dissenting reviews usually
focused on the fact that the mys tery in Fishers novel included characters heretofore not considered a part of
the mystery genre: African Americans. Some reviewers did not know how to evaluate or appreciate Frimbo, the
dark and mysterious African who is at the novels center.
Berghahn, Marion. Images of Africa in Black American Literature. London: Macmillan, 1977. A consideration
of the image of the African in history and in literature. The first part of the book discusses the image of Africans
in the white imagination. The chapter titled The Harlem Renaissance presents useful information that helps
one to understand a character such as NGana Frimbo.
De Jongh, James. Vicious Modernism: Black Harlem and the Literary Imagination. Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press, 1990. Discusses major historical and literary events that helped to make Harlem a
culture capital for African Americans. Contains a fine, but relatively short, discussion of The Conjure-Man Dies
that emphasizes the novels ability to mediate black experience in Harlem of the 1930s.
Gayle, Addison, Jr. The Way of the New World: The Black Novel in America. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor
Books, 1975. Gives a good general overview of the development of the African American novel. Two chapters
help to position Rudolph Fishers work: The New Negro and The Outsider. Gayle argues that Fishers novels
advance many of Marcus Garveys ideas.
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Gloster, Hugh M. Negro Voices in American Fiction. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1948.
Lewis, David Levering. When Harlem Was in Vogue. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. One of the
most readable general discussions of the Harlem Renaissance. Provides ample coverage of the many people and
contexts that helped to define this period. Suggests that The Conjure-Man Dies is a breakthrough novel for
Fisher.
Perry, Margaret. A Fisher of Black Life: Short Stories by Rudolph Fisher. In The Harlem Renaissance Reexamined, edited by Victor A. Kramer. New York: AMS Press, 1987. Discusses Fishers short fiction, both
published and unpublished. Argues that Harlem and its spirit had an important place in Fishers fiction. Fisher
explores both urban realism and rural or African rituals and customs, so that his works give full coverage of
many parts of the African American experience, including its darker side.

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