My Years Reading Zora Neale Hurston
A reflection
I was first introduced to Zora Neale Hurston’s writings almost 20 years ago in my junior year of high school. I was taking AP English 3 and was required to read Hurston’s classic book Their Eyes Were Watching God. I don’t remember much of my first encounter with Janie and her three marriages but I do remember being struck by Zora’s author photo on the back cover. Something about Zora impressed and moved me, she reminded me a little bit of my maternal grandmother and her sense of style. My grandmother was born the year Their Eyes Were Watching God was published. I’m not sure if she ever read Hurston, but I have a good feeling that I told her about the book when I read it.
Fast forward a few years, I reread Their Eyes Were Watching God in my sophomore year of college in two separate literature classes. In the Fall semester I read it in a Southern Literature class and in the Spring semester I read it in a Black Literature class. It was in the Black Lit class that the book and Zora took a new meaning for me. A dynamic professor, Dr. Reginald Watson, taught my Black Lit class. We read so many good books in that semester: The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Beloved, Native Son, and of course, Their Eyes Were Watching God. I almost did not reread Zora’s book for a third time, especially since I had just read it in the Fall but Dr. Watson read and taught the book very differently. So much so that he had us do dramatic readings of a few scenes. One day in class I volunteered or was asked to read a scene in the book that involved the death of a yellow mule and some buzzards holding court over its carcass. I’ll be honest I read the scene without a lot of flare or emphasis, but Dr. Watson showed us how it was done with his rich baritone voice brought the scene to life, and told us how it foreshadowed an important plot point that was to come in the novel.
I remember Dr. Watson also taught us about Zora’s life in class. I distinctly remember him teaching about Zora and her disagreement with the various Black male writers of the time. I believe he also told us about the morals charge that was falsely brought against her in the late 1940s. Watson’s lessons on Zora so impressed me that I read her novel Moses, Man of the Mountain two years later when I graduated from undergrad. It was at that point that I took a break from Zora…but not for long.
About a decade later I decided to give Zora another try. Her nonfiction book Barracoon was just published and I dived in, never knowing the story of Cudjo Lewis one of the last enslaved people captured and brought to America from Africa. Lewis’ story was fascinating and we have Zora to thank for collecting it and for fighting to get it published even when the white publishers didn’t want it to. Her estate finally let it see the light of day 58 years after her death.
In 2022, the Zora Neale Hurston Estate permitted Amistad to publish a collection of Zora’s essays titled You Don’t Know Us Negroes. I was excited to get an ARC copy from NetGalley and I devoured that collection. It was that book that allowed me to fall in love with Zora’s craft and her mind, even when I fundamentally disagreed with some of her political views.
To coincide with the release of You Don’t Know Us Negroes, Amistad released a 10-book box set of Zora’s works. A Bookstagram friend, Crystal Forte, aka Melanated Reader, shared that the box set was 70% off on Amazon. I instantly bought and I promised myself that I would read more of Zora’s work. In 2022, in addition to You Don’t Know Us Negroes, I read Their Eyes Were Watching God for a fourth time (with a buddy read group), her memoir Dust Tracks on a Road where I instantly wanted to know more about her life, and the play Mule Bone that she co-wrote with Langston Hughes. It was a fascinating book because it not only contained the play but also the short story Zora wrote which the play was based on, as well as the letters and retrospective accounts of how Zora and Langston’s friendship ended as a result of the play.
In 2023, two more Bookstagram friends (Michele and LaTrice) asked if I was going to do a challenge on Zora’s books. I was first reluctant to do so but later changed my mind and created The Zora Challenge. I wanted to challenge myself to read the rest of her catalog and making it an official challenge allowed me to open it up to other participants. In 2023, I completed the challenge by reading the remaining seven books: Tell My Horse; Every Tongue Got to Confess; Jonah’s Gourd Vine; Mules and Men; Seraph on the Suwanee; Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick; and The Complete Stories. In addition, I read a collection of Zora’s plays edited by Jean Lee Cole and Charles Mitchell and read two biographies of Zora by Robert Hemenway and Valerie Boyd’s book Wrapped in Rainbows. I finished the year by reading Zora and Langston by Yuval Taylor.
Reading Zora’s biographies steered me to read two poetry collections by close friends of Zora: Fine Clothes to the Jew by Langston Hughes and God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse by James Weldon Johnson.
Reading most of Zora’s books in the last two years has been an experience that I’ll never forget. You don’t get the full picture of Zora by just reading one book, you have to read them all to see what inspired her. Her inspiration came from her family and other Black folk from her hometown of Eatonville, FL; the Black workers in the Deep South; the Hoodoo priests in Louisiana and Florida; and the voodoo priests of Haiti and Jamaica.
Zora inspired me to blog more. I created a syllabus of and about Zora and her works. I wrote a blog that analyzed what her obituaries teach. I wrote a poem inspired by Zora’s book Mules and Men and the song “Part of Your World” from the film The Little Mermaid. Lastly, I listed out my favorite Zora quotes that I have come across in my readings. You can read these four pieces at the links below.
At the end of 2023, I had the privilege and opportunity to speak with Zora scholar Rae Chesny about my love and respect for Zora Neale Hurston. View the discussion here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0zqSn1g1cI/
This does not end my reading of Zora. I will continue to return to her works throughout the years and there are old and new books yet to be read. My reading journey with Zora does not end, it continues!!!
