The 1937 manifesto “Blueprint for Negro Writing” is typically regarded as a programmatic articulation of the literary and aesthetic principles for the kind of socially engaged literature Richard Wright believed a modern Black writer ought to produce. This reading of the text assumes, however, an internally coherent argument that it does not entirely warrant. Indeed, I argue that the “Blueprint” is substantially haunted by a fear of alienation and isolation that tends to undermine its purportedly communalist politics. When read in the context of the vexed coterie politics of Dorothy West’s New Challenge magazine where it first appeared, as well as the edits and alternative draft notes in the archive, Wright’s attitude assumes a far more doubtful, and even vulnerable posture. This revised understanding of a key document in Wright’s oeuvre opens it—and by extension the early fiction as well—to new directions in Wright scholarship, especially those concerned with the intersection of race, affect, and alienation.