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A review by laurieb755
Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray
3.0
Jessie Redmon Fauset was a prolific author and integral part of the Harlem Renaissance, that period in the 1920s when the creative arts in Harlem, NY were blossoming. I had never heard of her until reading this book. Thanks to meticulous research over the span of about two years Victoria Christopher Murray has crafted an eye-opening story into not only Jessie Fauset but also the time period, the location, and another major character of the time W.E.B. Du Bois.
I enjoyed this entry into a part of history that prior had been largely unknown to me. I quite liked the picture of Jessie that emerged though there were a few times I wanted to reach into the story and give her a good shake. Victoria Christopher Murray has drawn on multiple sources to create a version of Jessie that does justice to both this book's author and to Jessie.
However, Murray also used her sources and imagination to give this story a romantic underpinning. Jessie and W.E.B. Du Bois have a very long, mostly on but occasionally off, romantic entanglement. And that is precisely why I wanted to reach into the pages and give Jessie a good shake. By all counts she was a highly capable, very productive, driven woman.
Jessie had a very strong internal drive and was immensely talented at everything she did. She quite enjoyed meeting and helping new black authors, often times assisting them as their editor and then publishing their work in The Crisis, the official publication of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). While Du Bois founded the magazine, it was Literary Editor Jesse Fauset who made it a resounding success.
FYI I previously read The Personal Librarian, another story of historical fiction co-authored by Victoria Christopher Murray with Marie Benedict. Turns out I've read several books by Marie Benedict. I hope these two authors continue to collaborate on historical fiction and bring more unknown women to life.
I enjoyed this entry into a part of history that prior had been largely unknown to me. I quite liked the picture of Jessie that emerged though there were a few times I wanted to reach into the story and give her a good shake. Victoria Christopher Murray has drawn on multiple sources to create a version of Jessie that does justice to both this book's author and to Jessie.
However, Murray also used her sources and imagination to give this story a romantic underpinning. Jessie and W.E.B. Du Bois have a very long, mostly on but occasionally off, romantic entanglement. And that is precisely why I wanted to reach into the pages and give Jessie a good shake. By all counts she was a highly capable, very productive, driven woman.
Jessie had a very strong internal drive and was immensely talented at everything she did. She quite enjoyed meeting and helping new black authors, often times assisting them as their editor and then publishing their work in The Crisis, the official publication of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). While Du Bois founded the magazine, it was Literary Editor Jesse Fauset who made it a resounding success.
FYI I previously read The Personal Librarian, another story of historical fiction co-authored by Victoria Christopher Murray with Marie Benedict. Turns out I've read several books by Marie Benedict. I hope these two authors continue to collaborate on historical fiction and bring more unknown women to life.