Infants of the Spring (Harlem Renaissance) - Softcover

Thurman, Wallace

3.8

436 ratings by Goodreads

9780375752322: Infants of the Spring (Harlem Renaissance)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0375752323 ISBN 13: 9780375752322

Publisher: Modern Library, 1999

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Modern Library Harlem Renaissance

It's 1920s Harlem, and man, the joint is jumpin'. Folks are coming and going and everything's copacetic as long as the gin keeps flowing. This is the scene Stephen Jorgenson dives into when he arrives from Canada for the first time. He is taken to "The Niggerati Manor," an apartment building in Harlem inhabited by aspiring artists whose true talents lie in living, and where everything's black and white--with a lot of grayness in between. Counterbalancing Stephen's embrace of these folks is Raymond Taylor, a writer who is the only truly talented artist in the manor. Raymond's cynical take on the "new Negro artist" is the tightrope he walks between the love and hatred of himself and his people. Characters representing Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Alain Locke all appear, and part of the fun of this book is figuring out who's who.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

This little-known classic of the Harlem Renaissance--by the mysterious, Utah-born bisexual Wallace Thurman, who died in obscurity in 1934--is both timeless and timely. It centers on the larger-than-life denizens of a Harlem mansion called "Niggeratti Manor": Stephen Jorgensen, the recently arrived Canadian; Paul, the ambivalent, uptown social critic; Pelham, the struggling poet; and Eustace Savoy, an entertainer disdainful of his Afro-American musical heritage. In this volatile gumbo of complex characters--which also pokes fun at a few famous writers, including Zora Neale Hurston, Alain Locke, and Langston Hughes--Thurman weaves a hilarious story that critiques the paternalistic Negro author/white patron relationship, uncovers the social-class antagonisms in the Afro-American community, and foreshadows the sexual and social themes of James Baldwin and E. Lynn Harris. Thurman's elegant and elastic prose adds more illumination to this bright period in African American literature. --Eugene Holley Jr.

From the Back Cover:

"[T]his delightful roman � clef about the Harlem Renaissance reflects . . . many of the competing notions of its time--between the masses and individuality, between art and uplift, between civilization and primitivism, between separatism and assimilation." --Kirkus Reviews

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.