Hitting a straight lick with a crooked stick : stories from the Harlem Renaissance

Author

Zora Neale Hurston

Call Numbers

• FICTION HURS (CEN, OSH, POW)
• FICTION HURS TEEN (CEN)

Edition

First edition.

Publication Information

New York, NY : Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2020]

Physical Description

xliii, 252 pages ; 22 cm

Summary

In 1925, Barnard student Zora Neale Hurston--the sole black student at the college--was living in New York, "desperately striving for a toe-hold on the world." During this period, she began writing short works that captured the zeitgeist of African American life and transformed her into one of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Nearly a century later, this singular talent is recognized as one of the most influential and revered American artists of the modern period. Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick is a collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African American folk culture. Brought together for the first time in one volume, they include eight of Hurston's "lost" Harlem stories, which were found in forgotten periodicals and archives. These stories challenge conceptions of Hurston as an author of rural fiction and include gems that flash with her biting, satiric humor, as well as more serious tales reflective of the cultural currents of Hurston's world.

Contents

• John Redding goes to sea
• Conversion of Sam
• Bit of our Harlem
• Drenched in light
• Spunk
• Magnolia flower
• Black death
• Bone of contention
• Muttsy
• Sweat
• Under the bridge
• 'Possum or pig?
• Eatonville anthology
• Book of Harlem
• The Book of Harlem
• Back room
• Monkey junk
• Country in the woman
• Gilded six-bits
• She rock
• Fire and the cloud.