A Vintage Shorts “Short Story Month” Selection James Baldwin’s commanding prose remains as pressing in its compassionate portrayal of marginalized figures today as it was during the peak of the Civil Rights Movement. In “Come Out the Wilderness,” an essential and tremendous classic of American literature, Baldwin unmasks the heartbreak of one African American woman’s spiritual, sexual, moral, and ultimately futile struggle for control of her future and her happiness in mid-century New York. An ebook short.