Forward and Forewords

I just finished Zora Neale Hurston’s recently published collection of stories,Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stickwith an introduction by Hurston scholar, Genevieve West. As is my habit, I read the stories first and then the introduction after (more on that practice later).

A number of the stories in this collection were recently rediscovered in small publications from seven or eight decades ago. Most of Hurston’s well-known fiction is set in her hometown of Eatonville, Florida, a patch of earth that she makes her own as much as Faulkner makes Yoknapatawpha County the center of his fiction, as Tayari Jones observes in the book’s foreword (yes, there’s a foreword too). 

Besides presenting a number of Hurston’s stories that have remained in obscurity for years, this collection also reveals an aspect of her work that is not generally known. A number of the stories are set in Harlem (for example, her two mock biblical stories, both titled “The Book of Harlem”) among the community of African Americans that made the Great Migration northward from southern places such as Eatonville. These rural southern greenhorns are vulnerable to smooth talking city slickers and seducers, though sometimes they come out on top. These stories have the same flavor of folklore and community triumph, tragedy, and humor as her more well known works in rural settings. And when I say humor, I mean it, there are many laugh out loud moments in these stories. 

These stories were published over a decade plus in various periodicals (or not at all in her lifetime), and demonstrate her growth as a fiction writer, not least among them the evolution of her depiction of African American dialect on the page. Her flair for dialogue is always vivid, and as I said above, frequently hilarious when that was her intention, as in this line from the story, “Sweat”: “She don’t look lak a thing but a hunk uh liver wid hair on it.” Pretty difficult to get that image out of one’s mind. Yet this funny line is in the middle of a story about a man who beats his wife horribly and cheats on her. Spoiler alert: she gets her revenge in a very brutal way. It’s an extraordinary story. 

I am merely scratching the surface here. Although not all of these stories are stone classics, they are all worth reading for their wit, feeling, atmosphere, characters, and ideas. Zora Neale Hurston’s work is squarely rooted in African American life whether in the rural south or in Harlem. She had the extraordinary ability to set a scene in just a few words, to dramatize conflict between characters using subtle shifts in tone, and of course there is always the great humor. And of course she was a great feminist icon by just practicing her art with courage, heart, and confidence in a so-called “man’s world.” I plan on reading a lot more of her work going forward. 

And speaking of forward and forewords, I very much enjoyed Genevieve West’s informative introduction. Perhaps I would have gained more from these stories had I read it first, as was intended, but that wasn’t how I did it. 

When I enter a novel or story for a first reading, I am as tentative as I am entering a party, trying to figure out who is who and getting into the rhythm of the gathering. Maybe not the best analogy since I am a shy person who feels anxious in crowds, but I also feel a certain degree of anxiety when reading a piece of fiction for the first time. Am I following the thread of the plot? Who is this or that character?  Am I picking up on the themes/metaphors/symbols of the story? Am I doing right by this author?

Continuing with this shy person at a party analogy we might observe that it is nice to have a friendly face to introduce us around to the various strange faces or at least give us a road map to the social situation. Therefore, I submit that a well written and thoughtful introduction to a book can be, well, a nice introduction to the characters, plot, themes, author’s intentions, etc. It can help us cut through the confusion, to reduce the anxiety of where am I, who is this, what’s going on? 

Here is where matters become complicated: despite my “anxiety” and confusion when getting into an unfamiliar work of fiction, I am more brave venturing into that alien territory than I am in a social gathering. I flatter myself that I have enough intelligence, sensitivity, reading experience, and scholarly training to get my bearings when I am reading a work that is new to me. 

As I said above, there is a lot of value in a well written and informed introduction. It can open up a text in a meaningful way. It’s a good way to enter the party, as it were, but in books as in life, I usually loosen up in the course of reading the book and go back to the introduction at the end, which is what I did with Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick. 

Forward and foreword!