Zora Neale Hurston: Folklore, Memoirs, & Other Writings

by Zora Neale Hurston, Cheryl Wall (Editor)

The library of America is dedicated to publishing America's best and most significant writing in handsome, enduring volumes, featuring authoritative texts. Hailed as the "finest-looking, longest-lasting editions ever made" (The New Republic), Library of America volumes make a fine gift for any occasion. Now, with exactly one hundred volumes to choose from, there is a perfect gift for everyone.

Genres: Nonfiction, Classics, Memoir, Biography, Short Stories, African American, Collections

1001 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1995

About the author

Novels, including Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), and nonfiction writings of American folklorist Zora Neale Hurston give detailed accounts of African American life in the South.

In 1925, Hurston, one of the leaders of the literary renaissance, happening in Harlem, produced the short-lived literary magazine Fire!! alongside Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman shortly before she entered Barnard College. This literary movement developed into the Harlem renaissance.

Hurston applied her Barnard ethnographic training to document African American folklore in her critically acclaimed book Mules and Men alongside fiction Their Eyes Were Watching God . She also assembled a folk-based performance dance group that recreated her Southern tableau with one performance on Broadway.

People awarded a Guggenheim fellowship to Hurston to travel to Haiti and conduct research on conjure in 1937. Her significant work ably broke into the secret societies and exposed their use of drugs to create the Vodun trance, also a subject of study for fellow dancer-anthropologist Katherine Dunham, then at the University of Chicago.

In 1954, the Pittsburgh Courier assigned Hurston, unable to sell her fiction, to cover the small-town murder trial of Ruby McCollum, the prosperous black wife of the local lottery racketeer, who had killed a racist white doctor. Hurston also contributed to Woman in the Suwanee County Jail , a book by journalist and civil rights advocate William Bradford Huie.

Reviews

[Lawrence FitzGerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a compendium of Hurston's non-fiction.

I went into this one having never read Hurston at all, but was interested in the sections on Hoodoo and Voodoo. I anticipated reading those sections and sampling a few other things. I ended up reading the entire 900+ pages and quite a bit on the internet as well.

I had to go to the internet to bone up on the Harlem Renaissance, the philanthropist Charlotte Osgood Mason, the poet Langston Hughes, the anthropologist Franz Boas, the novelist Fannie Hurst, the philosopher Alain Locke, 1930's Haiti, Marie Laveau (both mother and daughter), Uncle Remus, James Weldon Johnson and all manner of people and history of whom and of which I had only slight acquaintance.

Perhaps I should have begun with a good biography of Hurston. But when you know so little it's hard to know where to start and, what the hell, it all becomes part of the magical journey anyway. Besides, I started out to just read a little 1930's voodoo.

What happened?

Zora Hurston is what happened. From reading her and from reading about her, it seemed that if Zora Neale Hurston wanted you to like her, you were going to like her whether you were initially inclined to or not. We have all met people like this. She had a genuine exuberance for life and her writing is steeped in it.

If you're looking for a dreary read about the Children of Slavery, this isn't it. Hurston was no Pollyanna, but she was an original thinker on Race and had no time for the Victim Mentality. She didn't toe the then party line on Race and she suffered a bit for it, but she didn't care.

If you're looking for a Feminist Manifesto, look elsewhere. For Hurston, it wasn't so much the hand that you were dealt, but how well you played the cards. And she played her cards well. Being a woman never slowed her down; she carried a pearl handled revolver, went everywhere and did everything.

One last thing. Zora Hurston died old, broke and alone. But don't you dare feel sorry for her. She didn't feel sorry for herself and she doesn't need you or me to do it for her. She lived her life and had no regrets. I can only hope to say the same.

Hurston relates a story wherein a man is being told he needed to do this or that and the man replies, "I don't gotta do nothin' but stay black and die." Hurston did that and so much more. She was an American original.

[Batgrl (Book Data Kept Elsewhere) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was just reading an excerpt from Dust Tracks in an anthology and got into a "must read more Hurston" fest. It's been long enough since I'd read any of these books that they all felt new to me.

Ebook, read via Open Library.

In her books that are mostly anthropology (Mules and Men, Tell My Horse) Hurston is always a participant-observer, and she never fails to be clear/blunt about her point of view, whether that's on the role and treatment of women, the poor, or the politicians. She takes a hard look at race, both in the US and in other countries, and doesn't dance around with her opinions. And every now and then she'll use a turn of phrase that really makes me appreciate her writing ability.

(Note of personal bias: my mother is so southern that sometimes I can't even understand her for her thick accent - and my own accent is with me at times. So sometimes Hurston's expressions sound like something my family would say in the way they would say it, and I can't help but automatically enjoy that. Your mileage may vary.)

I've tried to add a variety of Hurston's writings in quotes to give you an idea of what sorts of books these are and the variety of styles she can write in and the subjects she's tackling. But I also should note that these are excerpts, and they really need to be read in context to get the full argument, especially in the Selected Writings section. If you have to pick any one book out of this - go with Dust Tracks. It's the oldest one, and her writing is at its best and her descriptions will stick with you.

Hurston's bluntness and her politics weren't to everyone's taste, but I think the way in which she expresses herself is fascinating. I can also understand why she's a continuing source of study, because any attempt to sum up any one part/area of her work would require a thesis in itself. Reading Hurston makes me want to read more, and study more of the subject at hand.


Contents:
- Mules and Men (p 1-268) [orig. pub. 1935, traveling FL and gathering folklore, hoodoo lore in New Orleans] (Advised to avoid the hoodoo sections: those who are upset by deaths of chickens and black cats. And yes, the cat part was hard for me, I had a black cat as a pet.)
- Tell My Horse (p. 269-556) [orig. pub. 1938, traveling in Jamaica and Haiti, gathering folklore and hoodoo lore] (Again, killing of various farm animals and a dog in ceremonies. Hurston's commentary in multiple areas makes it clear she doesn't enjoy this.)
- Dust Tracks on a Road (p. 557-808) [orig. pub. 1942, autobiography]
- Selected Articles (p. 809-960)

Quotes and ponderings:

Mules and Men, p 66-7 - sample of the dialect and language Hurston transcribes in most of the stories - here a local man is flirting with Hurston, whom he's just met:

" "...Some of 'em talkin' 'bout marryin' you and dey wouldn't know whut to do wid you if they had you. Now, dat's a fack."

"You reckon?"

"Ah know dey wouldn't. Dey'd 'spect you tuh git out de bed and fix dem some breakfus' and a bucket. Dat's 'cause dey don't know no better. Dey's thin-brainded. Now me, Ah wouldn't let you fix me no breakfus'. Ah git up and fix mah own and den, whut make it so cool, Ah'd fix you some and set it on de back of de cook-stove so you could git it when you wake up. Dese mens don't even know how to talk to nobody lak you. If you wuz tuh ast dese niggers somethin' dey'd answer you 'yeah' and 'naw.' Now, if you wuz some ole gator-black 'oman dey'd be tellin' you jus' right. But dat ain't de way tuh talk tuh nobody lak you. Now you ast me somethin' and see how Ah'll answer yuh."

"Mr. Pitts, are you havin' a good time?"

(In a prim falsetto) "Yes, Ma'am. See, dat's de way tuh talk to you."

I laughed and the crowd laughed and Pitts laughed. Very successful woofing."

(As someone who is not a morning person, a guy offering me that breakfast scenario? I'd be smiling at him too. The bucket is about the same as a lunch pail, or packed lunch for work.)

Woofing is defined as (p. 229): "aimless talking. A man half seriously flirts with a girl, half seriously threatens to fight or brags of his prowess in love, battle or financial matters. The term comes from the purposeless of barking dogs at night."

Mules and Men, p 119-120, from a story about God and creation:

"...Way after while de flowers said, "Wese put heah to keep de world comp'ny but wese lonesome ourselves."

So God said, "A world is somethin' ain't never finished. Soon's you make one thing you got to make somethin' else to go wid it. Gimme dem li'l tee-ninchy shears."

So he went 'round clippin' li'l pieces offa everything - de sky, de trees, de flowers, de earth, de varmits and every one of dem li'l clippin's flew off. When folks seen all them li'l scraps fallin' from God's scissors and flutterin' they called 'em flutter-bys. But you know how it is wid de brother in black. He got a big mouf and a stambling tongue. So he got it all mixed up and said "butter-fly" and folks been calling 'em dat ever since. Dat's how come we got butterflies of every color and kind and dat's why dey hangs 'round de flowers. Dey wuz made to keep de flowers company."

Mules and Men, p 183, in New Orleans Hurston met Luke Turner, who said he was Marie Laveau's nephew. Turner on Leveau:

"She was very pretty, one of the Creole Quadroons and many people said she would never be a hoodoo doctor like her mama and her grandma before her. She liked to go to the balls very much where all the young men fell in love with her. But Alexander, the great two-headed doctor felt the power in her and so he tell her she must come to study with him. Marie, she rather dance and make love, but one day a rattlesnake came to her in her bedroom and spoke to her. So she went to Alexander and studied. But soon she could teach her teacher and the snake stayed with her always.

...Now, some white people say she hold hoodoo dance on Congo Square every week. But Marie Leveau never hold no hoodoo dance. That was a pleasure dance. They beat the drum with the shin bone of a donkey and everybody dance like they do in Hayti. Hoodoo is private. She give the dance the first Friday night in each month and they have crab gumbo and rice to eat and the people dance. The white people come look on, and think they see all, when they only see a dance."

Mules and Men, p. 222 - telling about working with Kitty Brown "a well known hoodoo doctor of New Orleans, and a Catholic.":

"...It was in October 1928, when I was a pupil of hers, that I shared in a hoodoo dance. This was not a pleasure dance, but ceremonial. In another generation African dances were held in Congo Square, now Beauregard Square. Those were held for social purposes and were of the same type as the fire dances and jumping dances present in the Bahamas. But the hoodoo dance is done for a specific purpose. It is always the case of death-to-the-enemy that calls forth a dance. They are very rare even in New Orleans now, even within the most inner circle, and no layman ever participates, nor has ever been allowed to witness such a ceremony."

Tell My Horse; skin color in Jamaica is complicated:

p 281: "Everywhere else a person is white or black by birth, but it is so arranged in Jamaica that a person may be black by birth but white by proclamation. That is, he gets himself declared legally white. When I use the word black I mean in the American sense where anyone who has any colored blood at all, no matter how white the appearance, speaks of himself as black."

p 282: "...When a Jamaican is born of a black woman and some English or Scotsman, the black mother is literally and figuratively kept out of sight as far as possible, but no one is allowed to forget that white father, however questionable the circumstances of birth. You hear about "My father this and my father that, and my father who was English, you know" until you get the impression that he or she had no mother. Black skin is so utterly condemned that the black mother is not going to be mentioned or exhibited."

Hurston notes that this does seem to be changing, and there is a new respect for the black songs, stories, dances, etc. - the culture. That was in 1938 and now I wish I could read a history of Jamaica since then.

Tell My Horse, in Haiti, p 335-6:

"..."But where is the body of Charles Oscar Etienne?" Polynice cried. "He cannot be alive or this butchery could not have happened. He is the Chief military officer of Haiti with the care and protection of these unarmed and helpless people."

"He is the friend of Guillaume Sam," someone answered him.

"But honor lays a greater obligation than friendship; and if friendship made such a monster of a man, then it is a thing vile indeed. No, Oscar Etienne is dead. Only over this dead body could such a thing have happened..."

...After a while someone told him, "But Oscar Etienne is not dead. He was seen to leave the prison before five o'clock. It was he who ordered the massacre. He has taken refuge in the Dominican legation. He will not come out for any reason at all."

...Polynice rushed to the Dominican legation and dragged out the cringing Etienne who went limp with terror when he saw the awful face of the father of the Polynices. He mumbled "mistakes" and "misunderstanding" and placed the blame upon President Vilbrun Sam...

...He [Polynice] dragged him to the sidewalk and gave him three calming bullets, one for each of his murdered sons and stepped over the dead body where it lay and strode off. The crowd followed him to the home of Etienne where they stripped it first and then leveled it to its foundation. In their rage they left nothing standing that one might say "Here is the remains of the house of Etienne who betrayed and slaughtered defenseless men under his protection for the crime of difference of politics." "

Oscar Etienne was police chief under presidency of Vilbrun Guillaume Sam.

You can read the entire chapter called The Black Joan of Arc (from Tell My Horse, p. 360) here. (At least as of 4/2/2013)

Tell My Horse, p 398:

"Everybody knows that La Gonave is a whale that lingered so long in Haitian waters that he became an island. He bears a sleeping woman on his back. Any late afternoon anyone in Port-au-Prince who looks out to sea can see her lying here on her back with her hands folded across her middle sleeping peacefully. It is said that the Haitians prayed to Dumballa for peace and prosperity. ...so he sent his woman Cilla with a message to his beloved Haitians. ...The whale performed everything that the Master of Waters commanded him. He rode Madame Cilla so quickly and so gently that she fell asleep, and did not know that she arrived at her destination. The whale dated not wake her to tell her that she was in Haiti. So every day he swims far out to sea and visits with his friends. But at sundown he creeps back into the harbor so that Madame Cilla may land if she should awake. She has the formula of peace in her sleeping hand. When she wakes up, she will give it to the people."

Quote from Literary Culture and U.S. Imperialism by John Carlos Rowe, about William Seabrook's vs Hurston's version of stories.

(Added more Tell My Horse quotes here, because the chapter on Zombies was fascinating.)

(Currently skipped over Dust Tracks (see over there for quotes) - I own that book, and want to read the Selected Writings - ebook set to expire soon.)

p 836- Characteristics of Negro Expression:

"Negro folklore is not a thing of the past. It is still in the making. Its great variety shows the adaptability of the black man: nothing is too old or too new, domestic or foreign, high or low, for his use. God and the Devil are paired, and are treated no more reverently than Rockefeller and Ford. Both of these men are prominent in folklore, Ford being particularly strong, and they talk and act like good-natured stevedores or mill-hands. Ole Massa is sometimes a smart man and often a fool. The automobile is ranged alongside of the ox-cart. The angels and the apostles walk and talk like section hands. And through it all walks Jack, the greatest culture hero of the South; Jack beats them all - even the Devil, who is often smarter than God."

p 839 - Characteristics of Negro Expression - relating to their own culture (within a discussion about the Negro mimicking white culture, which used to be a trope to denigrate the "lack of culture" - which now seems a ridiculous and really old-idiot-white accusation, to me anyway):

"...Some refuse to countenance Negro music on the grounds that it is niggerism, and for that reason should be done away with. Roland Hayes was thoroughly denounced for singing spirituals until he was accepted by white audiences. Langston Hughes is not considered a poet by this group because he writes of the man in the ditch, who is more numerous and real among us than any other."

p 845 - Characteristics of Negro Expression:

"The spirituals that have been sung around the world are Negroid to be sure, but so full of musicians' tricks that Negro congregations are highly entertained when they hear their old songs so changed. They never use the new style songs, and these are never heard unless perchance some daughter or son has been off to college and returns with one of the old songs with its face lifted, so to speak.

I am of the opinion that this trick style of delivery was originated by the Fisk Singers; Tuskeegee and Hampton followed suit and have helped spread this misconception of Negro spirituals. This Glee Club style has gone on so long and become so fixed among concert singers that it is considered quite authentic. But I say again, that not one concert singer in the world is singing the songs as the Negro songmakers sing them.

If anyone wishes to prove the truth of this let him step into some unfashionable Negro church and hear for himself."

Again, Hurston is not shy about pointing out groups that she feels are - well, not 'doing it wrong,' but doing it one way and calling it traditional, or the same as traditional. She gives a lot more examples of various attempts to put on a show of black culture that the people originating the music/dance/etc. wouldn't recognize.

p 904-5 - The Sanctified Church:

"They say of that type of preacher, "Why he don't preach at all. He just lectures." And the way they say "lecture" makes it sounds like horse-stealing. "Why, he sound like a white man preaching." There is a great respect for the white man as a lawgiver, banker, builder and the like, but the folk Negro do not crave his religion at all. They are not angry about it, they merely pity him because it is generally held that he can't do any better that way. But the Negro who imitates the whites comes in for spitting scorn. So they let him have his big solemn church all to himself while they go on making their songs and music and dance motions to go along with it, and shooting new life into American music. I say American music because it has long been established that the tunes from the street and the church change places often. So they go on unknowingly influencing American music and enjoying themselves hugely while doing so, in spire of the derision from the outside."

p 907-8 - Art and Such, Hurston on "this race attitude":

"It was assumed that no Negro brain could ever grasp the curriculum of a white college, so the black man who did had come by some white folk's brain by accident and there was bound to be conflict between his dark body and his white mind. ...In spite of the thousands and thousands of Negro graduates of good colleges, in spire of hundreds of graduates of New England and Western Colleges, there are grey-haired graduates of New England colleges still clutching at the vapors of uniqueness. Despite the fact that Negroes have distinguished themselves in every major field of activity in the nation some of the left-overs still grab at the mangle of "Race Leader."

...In the very face of a situation as different from the 1880s as chalk is from cheese, they stand around and mouth the same trite phrases, and try their practiced-best to look sad. They call spirituals "Our Sorrow Songs" and other such tomfoolery in an effort to get into the spotlight if possible without having ever done anything to improve education, industry, invention, art and never having uttered a quotable line. Though he is being jostled about these days and paid scant attention, the Race Man is still with us - he and his Reconstruction pulings. His job is to rush around seeking for something he can resent.

..."Ought I not to be singing of our sorrows? That is what is expected of me and I shall be considered forgetful of our past and present. If I do not some will even call me a coward. The one subject for a Negro is the Race and its sufferings and so the song of the mornings [Hurston's example here of inspired, creative art] must be choked back. I will write of a lynching instead." So the same old theme, the same old phrases get done again to the detriment of art. To him no Negro exists as an individual - he exists only as another tragic unit of the Race."

p 909 - Art and Such:

"Though it is not widely known, there is a house in Fernandina, Florida whose interior is beautifully decorated in original wood carving. It is the work of the late Brooks Thompson who was born a slave. Without ever having known anything about African Art, he has achieved something very close to African concepts on the walls, doors and ceilings of three rooms. His doors are things of wondrous beauty. The greater part of the work was done after he was in his seventies. "The feeling just came and I did it," is his explanation of how the carpenter turned wood-carver in his old age."

Some of the articles in Selected Writing available to read online (note, I have not checked each of them for 100% accuracy with this text):

Characteristics of Negro Expression

The Pet Negro System

High John de Conquer

What White Publishers Won't Print

Court Order Can't Make Races Mix - 1955 (This was a highly controversial stance, as you can imagine.)

[Audrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hurston's irreverent wit shines through these writings. There are a few slow spots in the anthropology sections but Hurston doesn't dwell too long in deep waters before pulling back to her amazing storytelling. Hurston was a national treasure and should be taught in schools.

[shakespeareandspice]

Thus far, I’ve only read the following in this collection:

Dust Tracks on the Road - 4 stars

[Jadewik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having read "Their Eyes Were Watching God" back in my college preparatory years, I HATED the way Hurston wrote. Reading her memoirs and folk lore writings... I've changed my mind. I will admit to only reading her selections on HooDoo, VooDoo, and Haitian Zombies-- but WOW! A "boring" author comes to life within these pages.

I had NO IDEA that Hurston went to Haiti or that she participated in some sketchy VooDoo ceremonies so she could learn more about the religion and also to learn some of the VooDoo secrets. I was even impressed with her photo of an actual zombie (the Haitian one, not the Hollywood one). Her descriptions and adventures are wonderful-- I even really loved that she took time to write musical scores for some of the Rada drum cadences. This collection of writings is fantastic, and it really gives a better view of who Zora Neale Hurston was-- unlike the stuffy junk they had us read in school.

[Benjamin Fasching-Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Mules and Men” is mindblowing, a stellar collection of stories, jokes, songs and fables made even better because Hurston includes so much delicious context. With “Tell My Horse”, I started getting the uncomfortable, un-p.c. vibes from Hurston, that ‘who’s side is she on here?’ feeling. The Jamaica bits are every bit as pure joy as “Mules and Men”, but did she have to force the Maroons into a dangerous wild boar hunt? Of course she did. Once in Haiti, things just get darker. Thrilling tales of cannibal cults, sketches of violent upheavals in pre-u.s. occupation history, terrifying black magic stories (Zombies are real!), ebb and flow with friendlier and fun stories of Vodun and unusual characters. I can’t understand why it was unfavorably reviewed when first published, it’s, like I already wrote, thrilling. It can only be the politics of it: refusing to make Haitians as a group into the good guys or the bad guys. “Dust Tracks” wasn’t as good as the the first two works collected here, but still a 5 star book, just some of it seemed repetitive and then the really interesting things about her biography are not things she wants to address: Why did she betray Langston Hughes? How could she put up with Godmother’s ownership of her material? By this point in the volume, I began thinking that Hurston was maybe not a very nice person. But maybe that’s because she had so much abdominal pain. The collected articles at the end are hit and miss. Some are just rehashes of what we already loved in “Mules” but others are shocking surprises, not always pleasant. In general, I enjoy Hurston best when she is writing for an African diaspora audience, for example in newspapers like Negro World, then when she is writing for whites. Her complicated and seemingly contradictory statements about Jim Crow made me wonder how she would have reacted to Black Power had she lived another decade. She’d have hated the Panthers, for sure, but her critical and ultimately radical views might have helped keep some people a bit more honest... had she not died broke and alone.

This Library of America edition is a great way to read these works, closest to her original intentions, with notes and a chronology, the original artwork and photographs, plus a proper binding and all from a not-for-profit publisher.

[Edward Champion · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another typically excellent volume from the Library of America that truly demonstrates what a cogent ethnographer, sympathetic observer, and munificent sociologist Zora Neale Hurston was. I had not really plunged into Hurston's nonfiction, but it is well represented here, with a true infectious love for the people describing their stories. MULES AND MEN is an extension of the work that Hurston did during her Federal Writers Project days and we hear endless stories, lovingly rendered by Hurston. TELL MY HORSE unpacks the great culture of Jamaica, with its hoodoo and zombies, but far more than that. Little details such as the superstition of not allowing a dead chicken to be near salt. And DUST TRACKS ON A ROAD is a no-bullshit memoir of Hurston growing up contending with sexism and racism. She conveys the idea that "wanting more" (meaning dignity and racial equality) is a canard often used in the name of shame. And there is also a generous sampling of Hurston's journalism, including punchy articles taking rightful umbrage at FDR for failing to include Black people (and how democracy means nothing without them) and what publishers refuse to print (sadly, little has changed in the last seventy years). Great stuff. And it makes me want to reread all of Hurston's fiction again!

[Calciferocious · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished "Mules and Men," 30 Oct 2021. How do I rate a book like this?

There's definitely something haunting about being immersed so vividly in a particular place and time. Some of the stories nagged at me for days, anytime my mind was idle. The trickster stories of outwitting Ole Massa were both entertaining and a bucket of ice water over the head. The number of stories that start, "Back in slavery times..." is really sobering. You can know something and still feel it brand new when encountering it in a new setting. I felt that way a lot reading this book.

The conjure and hoodoo chapters were what drew me to the volume, though it was all fascinating and heart-opening. The details of the root and conjure workings are pretty grisly - I admire the strength of character it requires to carry them out, which I know I myself lack. What an impressive, determined, and powerful woman Ms. Hurston was! I'm still at a loss as for how to rate a volume like this but for now I'm giving it 5 stars. It's all priceless documentation of important and undervalued lives and stories.

[Otillia Engle]

Mules and Men is a great example of Hurston's ethnographic work. Unlike her fictional work, this story contains interviews and collected folklore from from Eatonville, Florida, where she grew up. Her advisor Franz Boas sent here to this location to collect this data - collecting some of the greatest photographs and videos as well during this time in the 1930's.

[doug.whatzup · Rating 4 out of 5]

The gem of this, the second of a two-volume Library of America set, is Hurston's extraordinary memoir, Dust Tracks on a Road. The first volume, which featured Hurston's novels and short stories, made me fall in love with Hurston the writer. Dust Tracks made me fall in love with Hurston the human being.

I have never read anything by Alice Walker. Don't know anything about her really. But I, indeed all readers, owe her an enormous debt for her rescuing from oblivion a writer who, to my mind, ranks among America's greatest.

[Cheri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone should read about Zora. When I first read her book about her life, I wanted to be more, do more, live life more. Inspiring

[Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps I should rate, "Hurston," higher. I am still learning. I had a conceit that I knew the names of America's major 19th Century, 20 Century writers. I had not heard of Zora Neale Hurston. I still am learning - still catching up. Hurston is a major American literary figure. In this Library of America volume, I judge it is best to begin with, "Dust Tracks on a Road," which is an autobiographical work. Hurston comes from a wholly-unfamiliar background: "I was born in a Negro town. I do not mean by that the black back-side of an average town. Eatonville, Florida, is, and was at the time of my birth, a pure Negro town - charter, mayor, council, town marshal and all. It was not the first Negro community in America, but it was the first to be incorporated, the first attempt at organized self-government on the part of Negroes in America…" You see - you are heading into places you never have been. Wonderful.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the companion book to the collection of her fictional writing. She was an anthropologist so it contains her studies of Haiti and Jamaica including Voodoo, as well as the very funny folktales of black Floridans, which may no longer be told since she did this study in 1935 and I wonder if TV etc will have taken the place of people sitting around entertaining themselves with stories like these. At that time, many of these people were only 2 or 3 generations away from slavery--Zora, herself, was 3 generations away. Dust Tracks on a Road is her autobiography while the Selected Aricles are short publications in various magazines and professional books. I really liked the entire book just as well as her fiction. She was an excellent writer.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great compilation of Hurston's work. Her fearlessness in exploring places people had previously failed to penetrate is amazing.

The centerpiece for me, however, is "Dust Tracks on a Road," her inventive (and partially "invented") autobiography. Reading the story she tells illuminates her life in ways that a straight reading never would. Required reading for anyone interested in creating their legacy.

[emjay · Rating 4 out of 5]

mules and men

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like her, not so much documenting the folklore but other essays and poetry. I enjoyed this book

[Lacey · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing