The Outsider is a novel set largely in Chicago and New York in the 1940s. Its protagonist, Cross Damon, is a Black postal worker trapped in a troubled personal life who sees a chance to escape his past and start again under a new identity. His freedom brings him into contact with political groups and new relationships, and he tries to live by his own rules, outside conventional morality. Influenced by existentialist thought, the book explores alienation, responsibility and the dangers of absolute freedom. It is a darker, more philosophical work than Wright's earlier fiction.
Quotes
The moment we act as if it's true, then it's true.
Oh, Christ their disease had reached out and claimed him too. He had been subverted by the contagion of the lawless; he had been defeated by that which he had sought to destroy.
Don't think I'm so odd and strange ... I'm not.... I'm legion ... I've lived alone, but I'm everywhere.
Nothing.... Alone a man is nothing.....I wish I had some way to give the meaning of my life to others.... To make a bridge from man to man.... We must find some way of being good to ourselves.... Man is all we've got.