The Sun Does Shine: Chapter 15 Summary & Analysis

Only six guys can join Ray in the book club, but every inmate is now allowed to have two books besides the Bible in his cell. Ray describes it as a whole new world opening up. The first book club meeting consists of Jesse Morrison, Victor Kennedy, Larry Heath, Brian Baldwin, Ed Horsely, Henry, and Ray—five Black guys and two white guys. They use the law library but they all have to sit at different tables, tossing the book to each other to read passages.

The book club’s first book is James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain, and some of the other inmates who aren’t in the club ask their families to send them a copy as well. Soon, everybody is talking about the book in their cells. They are transported to Harlem instead of death row, just as Ray could travel the world and have tea with the Queen of England.

At the first official book club meeting, the guys are uneasy at the change in their routine. They look at Ray for guidance, and he asks them what they liked about the book and what made an impression on them. Henry says he likes the idea that a person’s soul can be reborn, no matter what they’ve done.

Two of the guys in the book club, Baldwin and Horsely, are on death row for a crime they were accused of committing together. Horsely told officers that he did it alone, but this didn’t matter. Baldwin was shocked with a cattle prod until he confessed to the crime. Again, Ray thinks that some of the men on death row are guilty, but some are not. In Holman, it doesn’t really matter. They are just guys talking about a book.

Baldwin points to a passage in which the main character, John, is cleaning his house. John describes this as a lifelong task, like the man “whose curse it was to push a boulder up a steep hill, only to have the giant who guarded the hill roll the boulder down again.” Baldwin says all the inmates are pushing a boulder as well, until the giant either crushes them to death with the boulder or someone gives them a hand. Ray knows just what he means, relating to Baldwin’s feelings of helplessness and futility.

Horsely says that he likes how the characters’ backstories shed light on their problems. He says it’s like the inmates: everybody has a story that led them to their mistakes. Agreeing, Ray sees how the books are making everyone think and open their minds, as well as transport them away from death row for a while.

Ray points to a passage that Henry says he also liked and copied down on a piece of paper. In it, John’s father says that all white people are wicked because they imprison Black men, beat them, and kill them for things they have not done. John can try to change the world until “the sun refused to shine,” but white people will never let him enter their world. Ray knows that Henry picked this passage because Henry was taught the exact opposite: that all Black people are wicked.

Ray disagrees with the passage: he says that the world belongs to everyone, and he knows the sun will never refuse to shine. As Ray sees the guard returning to tell them that their hour is up, Ray says that one day, when he gets out of Holman, he’s going to tell the world about how there are men on death row who mattered—maybe he’ll even write a book about it. A few months later, on March 20, 1992, Larry becomes the first member of the book club to die. At the next meeting, they leave his chair empty.