A review by bookedbymadeline
Dust Tracks On A Road by Zora Neale Hurston

slow-paced

4.0

Loved the writing style, so poetic and paints a picture of Hurston’s life and surroundings! It felt like I went on the journey of her life alongside her. Read like a novel at times the way she told her stories and shared her vivid imagination! Her autobiography is also full of humor and insight.

Dust Tracks on a Road discusses her childhood, schooling, research that led to her creating Folk concerts (to share folk songs and music of West Indies) and interviewing the last slave brought to the US, her travels around the US and Caribbean, writing her novels, and her faith. 

Aside from learning about Hurston’s life, I also learned about the slave trade in Africa and the creation of Eatonville (which was the only fully Black town in the US)! I tabbed a lot of pages because like Their Eyes Were Watching God, there were many beautiful quotes.

Sometimes jumped around in time so could be confusing with the non linear narrative, and chapters were really long for my taste. Like many books that tell non linear stories (like anthologies and short story collections) I preferred some chapters over others.

Also found out upon finishing that many of this is fabricated or toned down! Apparently the publishers wanted to appeal to a white audience (its giving Uncle Sam “Too loud, too reckless, too…ghetto”) so much of Hurston’s real life story and thoughts are missing 😭 I felt disconnected from her and confused sometimes at the way the stories were written, so now it makes sense when her OWN story is forced to be heavily edited! 

Overall it was a beautifully written story that allowed me a closer understanding of Hurston but one that didn’t go as deep as I expected thanks to her shit publishers.
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