First published in 1932, two years before its author died destitute in New York City, this delightful roman Ö clef about the Harlem Renaissance returns to print as an inaugural volume in Modern Library’s new series about that golden moment in American literary history. Thurman (b. 1902), better known for his novel about interracial prejudice, The Blacker the Berry (1929), was part of an intellectual group that included Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Alain Locke, and Countee Cullen, all of whom make cameo appearances (under aliases) in this spirited satire, which mostly takes aim at Locke’s much-celebrated notion of “the New Negro,” a concept Thurman mocks as too serious and uplifting. But he also turns his sharp wit against the character who most resembles himself, Raymond Taylor, a pretentious young writer who fancies himself a Nietzchean individualist, above mere racial concerns, and dedicated only to art. Thurman’s self-deprecating humor focuses on Taylor’s easy cynicism, as well as on his daily dissipation at “Niggerati Manor,” his name for the apartment building in Harlem where many of the story’s aspiring artists spend their time swilling gin. Owned by good-hearted Euphoria Blake, a businesswoman who once harbored artistic aspirations of her own, the apartment house is also home to Paul Arbian, a decadent, bisexual artist dedicated to the spirit of Oscar Wilde; Eustace, a singer who prefers classical music to the spirituals everyone wants him to sing; and Pelham Gaylord, a servile wannabe, whose own pathetic poetry serves as evidence in a rape case, and also underlines the pretense in the effusions of his role-models, Raymond and Paul. After a sober gathering of the literati, Euphoria decides to close the “miscegenated bawdy house,” another victim of well-intentioned ideas. Thurman’s clever portrait gallery reflects many of the competing notions of its time—between the masses and individuality, between art and uplift, between civilization and primitivism, between separatism and assimilation. But what truly animates this smart fiction is the timeless belief that ideas have consequences.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-375-75232-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1998
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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