Harlem Renaissance: Five Novels of the 1920s: Cane / Home to Harlem / Quicksand / Plum Bun / The Blacker the Berry

by Rafia Zafar (Editor)

The novels of the Harlem Renaissance form a vibrant collective portrait of African American culture in a moment of tumultuous change and tremendous hope. “In some places the autumn of 1924 may have been an unremarkable season,” wrote Arna Bontemps. “In Harlem it was like a foretaste of paradise.”

Harlem Renaissance: Five Novels of the 1920s leads off with Jean Toomer’s Cane (1923), a unique fusion of fiction, poetry, and drama rooted in Toomer’s experiences as a teacher in Georgia. Toomer’s masterpiece was followed within a few years by a cluster of novels exploring black experience and the dilemmas of black identity in a variety of modes and from different angles.

Claude McKay’s Home to Harlem (1928), whose freewheeling, impressionistic, bawdy kaleidoscope of Jazz Age nightlife made it a best seller, traces the picaresque adventures of Jake, a World War I veteran, within and beyond Harlem.

Nella Larsen’s Quicksand (1928), is a poignant, nuanced psychological portrait of a woman caught between the two worlds of her mixed Scandinavian and African American heritage.

Jessie Redmon Fauset’s Plum Bun (1928), is the richly detailed account of a young art student’s struggles to advance her career in a society full of obstacles both overt and insidiously concealed.

Wallace Thurman’s The Blacker the Berry (1929), is an anguished, provocative look at prejudice and exclusion as it tells of a new arrival in Harlem searching for love.

Each in its distinct way testifies to the enduring power of the Harlem ferment.

Often controversial in their own day for opening up new realms of subject matter (including intergenerational conflict and color prejudice within the African American community) and language (infusing a wealth of argot and previously unheard voices into American fiction), these novels continue to surprise by their passion, their unblinking observation, their lively play of ideas, and their irreverent humor.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Anthologies, Historical Fiction, Short Stories, Literature

800 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2011

Reviews

[Alix Prassas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I had studied quite a bit of the Harlem Renaissance, most of the focus was on the most prominent Black males of the era. I had read Cane previously, but of the others, Claude McKay was the only other author I had previously read (Banjo). Out of the five novels, Plum Bun (Fauset) was definitely my favorite, though followed closely by Quicksand(Larsen). Home to Harlem and The Blacker the Berry drew me in though as well. Considering it was five novels in one, I didn't have any problem finishing it in a timely manner. I did like that there was quite a bit of information at the end as well--chronology of events/publications of the Harlem Renaissance, information on the authors, and other pertinent information. I definitely think this book is one I will look to purchase (had checked it out of the library).

[Christopher Sutch · Rating 5 out of 5]

See my reviews of the individual works collected in this volume. One unfortunate feature of this Library of American volume is the rather too-frequent lapses in copy-editing; there are several obvious textual errors that a more careful editorial process should have caught and corrected.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

As always, it's hard to rate an anthology in any way other by averaging.

[Stan Lanier · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Claude McKay's Home to Harlem from this volume.

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful collection from The Library of America! This volume contained: "Cane" by Jean Toomer; "Home to Harlem" by Claude McKay; "Quicksand" by Nella Larsen; "Plum Bun" by Jessie Redmon Fauset and "The Blacker the Berry" by Wallace Thurman. As reading all five of these novels in a row would a be a bit depressing, I have reviewed each of these novels separately. This collection truly is outstanding -- there's not a clinker in the group. I'm not sure what I was expecting from this collection, but I was really amazed by the focus on color and the many shades of "black" affected the characters across all five novels. I think I enjoyed "Home to Harlem" and "The Blacker the Berry" the most of the five due to their descriptions of the Harlem clubs and their performers. Truly the lighter side of the stories. I'm looking forward to reading the 2nd volume in this series -- Five Novels of the 1930s.

[Mommalibrarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very short novels, some poetry. Mostly about the North and New York but some about the South and other cities. Jean Toomer's Cane is the best of the five. The best line: "A closed lid is my soul's flesh eye." I have some of the stories mixed in my mind but in several it is definitely the jazz age and life is a party. Jazz and the blues are both prohibited in some places and they were both danced to. There is a lot of drinking and there are 'kept men'. Best line from Home to Harlem by Claude McKay: "Nobody kaint hand me no fairy tales about niggers. Wese all much of a muchness when you get down to the real stuff." Issues raised (1) ordinary people and 'intellectuals' (2) prejudice based on darkness of skin (3) the good life vs. home and family. I wonder how well read these works were at the time and how widely known.

[Gary Land · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume includes Jean Toomer's CANE, Claude McKay's HOME TO HARLEM, Nella Larsen's QUICKSAND, Jessie Redman Fausset's PLUM BUN, and Wallace Thurman's THE BLACKER THE BERRY. What struck me most about these books is the degree of color consciousnesss among blacks themselves. Two of the books (Larsen and Rausset) focus on the experience of a mulatto and "passing," and all of the complications these entail. CANE is probably the most creative, including short stories and poetry, mostly set in the South. HOME TO HARLEM describes the exciting life, mostly night life, in Harlem but eventually exposes it as empty, not providing stability for the lives of those living there. This volume provides a good cross-section of Harlem Renaissance literature.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Note: I only read Home to Harlem in this compilation as part of the 2017 Book Riot Read Harder Challenge.

I picked it up, I set it aside, I picked it up, I set it aside, and, finally, I picked it up and said to myself “Just finish it already!” I am not a student of Harlem literature or culture. I readily admit that I picked this up only to satisfy a reading challenge goal (classic by author of color). And, in the end, I can only say “It was okay.” I felt like most of the story did not dig deep enough. The only exception was Ray’s recollection of Jerco and Rosalind. That story within a story delved below the surface and got into the level of detail and description I longed for.

[Clarissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

this took me forever to read because it's a brick of 900 almost see-through pages and renewing it for months had me owing a lot of $$$ to the NYPL at times, but once I got into it (after Cane, that was a toughie for me, too non-narrative) it was a rly interesting time capsule into early 1900s Black America

i was struck by a lot of historical realities--the intra-racial dynamics & colorism, that so many stories were about Black people attending white universities (I clearly have a simplified understanding of how segregation worked?), and then the daily stuff like how people went about getting jobs at employment agencies (and also how many people skidded around with no job at all?), gender dynamics (surprised at all the men "living sweet" off women)

it was compelling that most stories followed long portions of the characters' lives, years and years creating a real sense of a person's lifetime, so that they felt like an exploration of how people figure out how to make sense of and enjoy life and reckoning with race being unavoidably mixed up in that

quicksand was like what the the vanishing half was trying to be. plum bun was my favorite. i could see some ppl taking it less seriously because it's sort of jane austen-esque but i think it was touching & complex. it was nice to read the author bios & notes on the texts at the end

hope to see the show on the harlem renaissance at the met next weekend ! lucky timing

[Brian Cubbage · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of five novels from the 1920’s which capture the range of themes and literary techniques that characterize the Harlem Renaissance. This is really five different books by five different authors published at five different times, so “reviewing” it in any conventional sense is rather difficult.

All of these books are worthwhile—the poetic modernism of Jean Toomer’s Cane, the picaresque comedy of Claude McKay’s Home to Harlem, the tragedy of Nella Larsen’s Quicksand, the subtle dissection of colorism of Wallace Thurman’s The Blacker the Berry—but the real standout for me is Jessie Redmon Fauset’s Plum Bun. That novel relates the story of Angela, a woman with a white mother and a Black father who can “pass” as white, and her living out the consequences of her decision to repudiate her Black heritage and embrace the possibilities of white society. Not since reading Stendhal’s The Red and the Black have I encountered a character who i don’t want to like, who really doesn’t deserve to be liked for most of the book, but who I care about despite myself. Such is the dispassionate insight and psychological subtlety with which Fauset invests Angela. It’s melodramatic and at bottom is a “marriage plot” kind of story, but it’s elaborately adorned. It deserves such a wider readership than it apparently has.

[Marta E C R · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this book because after reading Nella Larson’s book Passing, I wanted to read her other novel, Quicksand, and couldn’t find it through my library except in this collection. I’m so glad I read all five of these Harlem Renaissance novels of the 1920s. They gave me a much greater sense of what it meant to be black at that time. Many of the characters are young and coming of age, trying to find their places in the world. As one other reviewer mentioned, what is now called colorism was incredibly rampant at the time, and seemingly made life quite difficult for those with very dark skin, especially women. This is a great collection.

[Aurora Dimitre]

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