Zora Neale Hurston A Life in Letters

Chapter 1 "DE TALKIN' GAME" The Twenties (and Before) First and foremost a storyteller, with profound appreciation for the power of a well-crafted tale, Hurston moved to New York in 1925 and used her storytelling talent to refashion her life along mythic lines, erasing everything that didn't contribute to the new person she had determined to create. That person would have known hardships and hard times, but mostly in a general way. She might have disappointments, but they would never become obstacles. She would be tough and independent and young (in her early twenties, like her friends). Above all, she would be game for everything, full of enthusiasm and ideas. Nothing would be beyond her. She would live up to her proud heritage as a daughter of Eatonville, America's first incorporated all-black town--even if that meant starting over from scratch. Accordingly, the only full-scale biography of Zora Neale Hurston starts by describing how "in the first week of January, 1925, Zora Neale Hurston arrived in New York."1 Hurston begins her life over again in the twenties, establishing herself as a writer, social scientist, and active member of the nation's first major upsurge of African American arts. During this period, she developed her own aesthetic: an embroidered realism equally committed to liveliness and accuracy. Her developing style as a writer mirrored her personality: hardheaded and sentimental, constrained and effusive, objective and fanciful, all at the same time. The Harlem Renaissance--for all its own self-conscious mythmaking--afforded Hurston the necessary ground on which to build this new life. It gave her a collective enterprise in which she could play a valued role. Among its many circles she could find the publishers, editors, writers, artists, scientists, intellectuals, producers, directors, and patrons she needed to develop all the venues in which she sought to bring the African American vernacular to the American public. This period opened the door to a number of intimate friendships, an inner circle of confidants among whom Hurston hoped to find soulmates who could bridge their differences of race, class, gender, and upbringing. Characteristically, Hurston seemed unfazed by the dazzle of New York's Roaring Twenties. Whereas Harlem was a revelation for many African Americans who had never before been in such a teeming community of black people, Hurston had been raised in an all-black town and was well accustomed to urban life by 1925. She knew that this brief flourishing of America's interest in black culture was a golden moment-perhaps she even sensed how very fleeting that fascination would be-and she wasted no time in using it to advance her personal and artistic goals. Fashioning a serious career in this period meant becoming a good correspondent, keeping in touch with colleagues, friends, agents, editors, and publishers. Frequently, Hurston wrote multiple letters on a given day. Occasionally, she wrote more than one letter in a day to the same person. As far as can be determined, only one letter survives from earlier than the mid-twenties, although it is almost certain that she wrote to family and friends when she was attending Morgan State Academy and later Howard Preparatory. Without such a record, however, much of her early life remains a mystery. This may be how she wanted it. What Hurston has written of her early years is peculiar. In her autobiography,Dust Tracks on a Road, she offers a story of her origins that reads like pure fiction. She even marks it as "hear-say," a tall tale in the American tradition she called "lying." As she tells it, her mother found herself without benefit of midwife, friend, or the strength to "even reach down to where I was."2 If an elderly white gentleman had not chanced on her birthing, she would surely have died. Like a "fairy godmother," he counsels HKaplan, Carla is the author of 'Zora Neale Hurston A Life in Letters', published 2003 under ISBN 9780385490368 and ISBN 0385490364.