Reading post: February

It's the end of the month, so it's time for a reading post. In February I focused on books, mostly fiction, by and about Black writers (because February is Black History Month). I had a very long list and I did the best I could with it. I think mainly I was depressed, and there were days when I barely got out of bed. I just read, all these interesting books.

Books I said I'd like to read

The Walls of Jericho by Rudolph Fisher (1928). In August 2020 I read Fisher's The Conjure-Man Dies, the first detective story written by a Black person about Black people, and I LOVED it. This month I read Fisher's first novel, which isn't a mystery, unfortunately. It isn't much of a novel, either, very little plot, but he was just finding his feet as a writer, I think, and it's still worth reading. Lots of funny situations, lots of interesting cultural information about Harlem in the 1920s. 

This book was published the same year as Claude McKay's Home to Harlem, which I read in 2020, and which is, I think, the better book. I'm still so sorry that Rudolph Fisher died young (age 37) and only had time to write two books.

Blanche on the Lam by Barbara Neely (2014).  After I read The Conjure-Man Dies, I made a note that I wanted to read more mysteries by Black authors. 

I have added to my to-read list the other seven Chester Himes novels... the ten additional books in the Easy Rawlins series by Walter Mosley... and the 13 additional books by Eleanor Taylor Bland... I'd also like to explore works by Barbara Neely, Gar Anthony Haywood, and Grace F. Edwards...

Out of this list, the only thing I went on to read was Eleanor Taylor Bland's series, so this month I read Barbara Neely's first book and it was so fun. Blanche works as a cook/maid for rich white people in North Carolina who neglect to pay her, thus causing her to bounce a few checks. Running away from the sheriff, she ends up working for another rich white family who have a lot of secrets, including murder. Blanche solves the murder and gets out alive. This is the first of four books, the rest of which I will now read.

Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed (1972). In August 2021 I read a profile of Reed in The New Yorker and noted,

His most famous book, Mumbo Jumbo, has been vaguely on my "to-read" list for years, and after reading this profile I'm more interested, because I learned that it is "a detective novel set in Jazz Age Harlem."  

It isn't really a detective novel, I found to my disappointment. But it's set during the Harlem Renaissance and mentions lots of writers of that time period, so that's fun. It's a pretty crazy book, very hard to follow. There's a virus spreading across the country, a pandemic called Jes Grew (I got the "Topsy" reference!) which seems to make people dance and be happy. A shadowy group called the Wallflower Order wants to stamp it out, stamp out Black culture and history, and make everything white and bland and boring. There's a long section at the end that basically rewrites ancient history from a Black perspective. The whole book was nuts. But I'm glad I finally read it.

If I Should Die by Grace F. Edwards (1997). Another from my list of Black mystery writers I said I'd "like to explore." I had to request this from Prospector (from the University of Denver library), because the Boulder library has nothing. It's the first of four books featuring Mali Anderson (named after the African country), former police officer and now sociology grad student.

I have to say, it's not a very good mystery. It was pretty obvious who the murderers were, and there were a lot of loose ends not tied up properly. But Edwards writes well. She just hadn't figured out how to write a mystery when she wrote this book. I might try the next book in the series, just to see if she gets better at it. What I did like about the book was its sympathetic portrayal of life in Harlem in the 1990s.

Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Valerie Boyd (2003). Not fiction, but a biography of a famous Black writer from the Harlem Renaissance era. After I read Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God in 2020, I said

If I were feeling up to snuff, I would have read some of her anthropological work, and either a biography or her autobiography. 

Later on I did read her anthropological Mules and Men, and this month I tackled the biography. And I almost didn't finish it. It's 438 pages of text plus notes, and the text is small and closely spaced. Boyd basically includes every known detail of Hurston's life and it just gets oppressive. I thought we'd never get out of the 1930s. But I stuck with it, and I'll be darned. All that text, all that detail, and all of a sudden I felt like I knew Hurston and understood her. And liked her, whereas before I hadn't, quite. Not sure I really recommend this book unless you are a huge Hurston fan, but if you are, then you should read it.

The Trees by Percival Everett (2021). My third book by Everett and my favorite so far. When I read James in 2024 I said I'd like to read more by Everett. When I read Erasure this past November I noted that I didn't enjoy it, and said,

But I was impressed by Everett (who also wrote James) and would read more by him. 

So, I tried another one of his books -- and hit the jackpot. The Trees is SOOO good. It's structured as a murder mystery, although it's actually about the history of lynching in America. It begins in Money, Mississippi, the site of the Emmett Till lynching in 1955, where the two redneck sons of the two men who murdered Till are themselves found murdered, and lying next to each of them is the corpse of a small Black man who resembles Till, which later vanishes. And that's just the beginning. It doesn't seem like a book about lynching could be funny, but this one is. Eventually I started wondering how Everett was going to wrap it up, and he may have wondered that too. It's a little unclear! But still, very good book, fun book. I'll read more of Everett for sure.

Women of the Harlem Renaissance by Cheryl A. Wall (1995). Not sure this belongs in this list, because I think I just found it when I was looking for books about Zora Neale Hurston. Anyway, it's a scholarly book about Jessie Redmon Fauset, Nella Larsen, and Hurston, as well as some more minor writers of the Harlem Renaissance, so it feels like it fits here. It's a pretty readable book, despite being scholarly. I haven't read Fauset, so I was glad to read about her novels and conclude, as I had thought, that they're probably not worth reading. Also interesting to read about Larsen, whose Quicksilver I have read, and I am planning to read Passing next month. And of course Hurston, a slightly different view of her. A good, quick read.

 

Books from the New Yorker's "Briefly Noted" reviews

Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family by Rachel Jamison Webster. A genealogy book! And so interesting. The author, a white woman, learned through DNA testing that her father's father's mother's family was actually part Black. In fact, they were descended from a sister of Benjamin Banneker (the Black astronomer and mathematician who published an almanac in the late 1700s and helped lay out Washington, DC for Thomas Jefferson). She connected with other descendants who had been researching their family tree for a long time, and eventually wrote this book. 

The book itself is good but a bit frustrating. I didn't enjoy the chapters where she imagines the lives of Banneker and his parents and grandparents. It was impossible to know what she was making up and what was based on fact, because those chapters were written as little stories. But I did enjoy the chapters about the research and about Webster's interactions with her newfound Black cousins, who made the book possible. She spends a lot of time thinking about whether it is really appropriate for her to write this book, as a white woman who is descended from the branch of the family who decided to "pass," leaving their Black cousins behind to deal with racism in America. She never quite answers the question, although in some ways the book is her answer. But in some ways the book is the question. Very thought-provoking.

 

Other reading

Snow: A Scientific and Cultural Exploration by Giles Whittell (2018). In this year of no snow, I found this book on the "Staff Picks" shelf at the library. Whittell, an English journalist, explores many aspects of snow: the science (why no two snowflakes are the same), the linguistics of snow, big snows in history, the ski industry, Bigfoot, snow in art, how climate change is affecting snow (soon it'll all be gone), etc. I mean, it was a little dull (I used it to help me fall asleep), but I still liked it. One fun thing: Whittell tells the story of Rick Sylvester who did the ski jump in the movie The Spy Who Loved Me, so I got that from the library and we watched it. Pretty dumb movie, but that ski jump was awesome!

Firestorm: The Great Los Angeles Fires and America's New Age of Disaster by Jacob Soboroff (2026). From snow to fire. I saw an interview with the author on the PBS NewsHour a while back and put a hold on his book at the library. Most of the book is a detailed diary of the first few days of the fires of January 2025, which Soboroff reported on. It's agonizing to relive, but I also really wished Soboroff had gotten a little more distance from it before writing this. He grew up in Pacific Palisades, where one of the two worst fires was, and he keeps talking about his lost childhood, but saying the same things over and over. The epilogue is interesting, focusing on what Trump is doing to make it harder to fight fires, deal with climate change, etc.

Ausome Parenting: The Guide to Endless Love, Emotional Support, and Acceptance for Your Autistic Child by Natalie Loveson (2024). I got this from the library and oh, it's so awful (or should that be "auful"?). I can see how parents of a newly-diagnosed toddler might get something out of it, but I got almost nothing. It's self-published, so there are lots of grammar and format mistakes that should have been caught by an editor. Also, the author is so perky! Like, this experience is going to be GREAT! And then she gives a lot of breathing exercises (presumably to be used when things aren't GREAT). Not recommended.

The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism by Naoki Higashida, translated from the Japanese by KA Yoshida and David Mitchell (2007). This was more interesting, although I guess it is controversial. Supposedly it was written by a nonverbal boy with autism, using an "alphabet grid," but some people think his mother really wrote it for him. I have no way of knowing how much of it Naoki actually wrote, but it presented a lot of ideas about autism that were new to me, and I found it easy to read and very interesting.

A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym (1958). Oh, yes, February is when we read Barbara Pym! I almost didn't manage it this year, too busy with all these other books. This is not my favorite Pym, wouldn't choose it as comfort reading normally. But I read Less Than Angels last February, so it was time for this one. And really, it's very good, it's just that it's not as cozy as some of hers. The main character, Wilmet, is a little hard to like, but when she gets badly hurt toward the end of the book, it's still painful. But there are lots of cozy bits, and it all ends well, so I didn't mind reading it again. Still, not the happiest book and I wanted something happy. Next year!