Looking Back - The Blacker the Berry

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

The Blacker the Berry by Wallace Thurman
Fiction
1996 Scribner (First published in 1929)
Finished on July 30, 1996
Rating: 2/5 (OK)

Publisher's Blurb:

One of the most widely read and controversial works of the Harlem Renaissance, The Blacker the Berry...was the first novel to openly explore prejudice within the Black community. This pioneering novel found a way beyond the bondage of Blackness in American life to a new meaning in truth and beauty.

Emma Lou Brown's dark complexion is a source of sorrow and humiliation -- not only to herself, but to her lighter-skinned family and friends and to the white community of Boise, Idaho, her home-town. As a young woman, Emma travels to New York's Harlem, hoping to find a safe haven in the Black Mecca of the 1920s. Wallace Thurman re-creates this legendary time and place in rich detail, describing Emma's visits to nightclubs and dance halls and house-rent parties, her sex life and her catastrophic love affairs, her dreams and her disillusions -- and the momentous decision she makes in order to survive.

A lost classic of Black American literature, The Blacker the Berry...is a compelling portrait of the destructive depth of racial bias in this country. A new introduction by Shirlee Taylor Haizlip, author of The Sweeter the Juice, highlights the timelessness of the issues of race and skin color in America.


My Original Notes (1996):

Not the greatest book. Somewhat dull. Didn't care for the main character at all. Wouldn't recommend.

My Current Thoughts:

I think I chose to read The Wedding (Dorothy West) and this book in an effort to learn a little bit about the Harlem Renaissance. Unfortunately, neither book appealed to me. I might have enjoyed them more had I read them in a literature class or for a book club, as I think they would both benefit from discussion with others.

Looking Back - The Wedding

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

The Wedding by Dorothy West
Fiction
1996 Anchor
Finished on July 13, 1996
Rating: 2/5 (OK)

Publisher's Blurb:

In her last novel, Dorothy West, an iconic member of the Harlem Renaissance, offers an intimate glimpse into African American middle class. Set on bucolic Martha's Vineyard in the 1950s, The Wedding tells the story of life in the Oval, a proud, insular community made up of the best and brightest of the East Coast's black bourgeoisie. Within this inner circle of "blue-vein society," we witness the prominent Coles family gather for the wedding of the loveliest daughter, Shelby, who could have chosen from "a whole area of eligible men of the right colors and the right professions." Instead, she has fallen in love with and is about to be married to Meade Wyler, a white jazz musician from New York. A shock wave breaks over the Oval as its longtime members grapple with the changing face of its community.

With elegant, luminous prose, Dorothy West crowns her literary career by illustrating one family's struggle to break the shackles of race and class.


My Original Notes (1996):

Confusing! Hard to follow the characters. I really was ready to quit reading it after about 100 pages, but kept at it. It got a little better - enough to hold my attention - but certainly not great.

My Current Thoughts:

I have absolutely no recollection of this book and I'm not sure why I chose to read it. It wasn't a book group choice, so maybe I just stumbled upon it in a bookstore and thought it sounded interesting.