Another Country received much attention and mixed reviews. Reviews in the black press were generally favorable. The New York Times called it "a sad story, brilliantly and fiercely told" and compared it to T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land as a record of spiritual desolation in modern times. Time magazine called it "a failure". Norman Mailer said it was "abominably written". It quickly became a bestseller.[2]: 205 [4]: 216–7
A film adaptation was announced in 1964, with Tony Richardson directing and Baldwin himself writing the screenplay, though the film was never produced.[11][2]: 241
The book was designated "obscene" in New Orleans and banned, drawing the attention of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.[12]
In Australia, the Commonwealth Customs Department banned its import. The country's Literature Censorship Board, while admitting Baldwin's writing had some merit, described Another Country as "continually smeared with indecent, offensive and dirty epithets and allusions". The chairman noted that some might connect the novel's depiction of race relations with current events in Australia, and bearing in mind that a complete ban might damage the country's reputation, suggested that the book be available to "the serious minded student or reader."[13] In 1966 Alexander William Sheppard, an Australian bookseller, announced his plan to publish Another Country by dint of airmailing a number of letters to Australia, each containing a number of pages from the book, and then assembling all the pages received and printing the book. He did this and the Australian ban was lifted.[14][15]
Baldwin inferred from the book's popularity that "many more people than are willing to admit it lead lives not at all unlike the lives of the people in my book."[16] Baldwin also said that the book "scared people because most don't understand it."[17]
Eldridge Cleaver had harsh words for Baldwin, in his book Soul on Ice, writing that he admired Baldwin in some ways but felt increasingly uncomfortable with his writing. Cleaver says that Another Country made clear why his "love for Baldwin's vision had become ambivalent,"[18]: 97–8 and writes:[18]: 107
Rufus Scott, a pathetic wretch who indulged in the white man's pastime of committing suicide, who let a white homosexual fuck him in the ass, and who took a Southern Jezebel for his woman, with all that these tortured relationships imply, was the epitome of a black eunuch who has completely submitted to the white man. Yes, Rufus was a psychological freedom rider, turning the ultimate cheek, murmuring like a ghost "You took the best so why not take the rest", which has absolutely nothing to do with the way that Negroes have managed to survive here in the hells of North America!
The book was listed by Anthony Burgess as one of his Ninety-nine Novels: The best in English since 1939.
