Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston (TPB, 1978 edition of 1937 novel, $2.50)
Hurston went her own way. She was against the New Deal, communism, affirmative action and integration of the schools because she thought they wouldn't work. She was a brilliant anthropologist, folklorist, and ethnographical researcher, studying the people of the American South, as well as Haiti, Honduras and other places. She was a feminist when American black writers were mostly men. Her characters spoke in dialect, which her peers labeled as racist. Her peers also wrote about politics and racial struggles, while she wrote about individuals. When she entered the world of the Harlem Renaissance she worked closely with Langston Hughes and was praised. Later Wright and Ellison would criticized her, and she was eventually ignored. She would end her life working as a substitute teacher and a maid, but she was not forgotten. Both Alice Walker and Toni Morrison were heavily influenced by her. Their Eyes Were Watching God is her best known novel. Look for it in the Afro-American section (though it would be just at home in the anthropology section). (Avail. 9/9)
