Friends, to know me is to know I’m obsessed with the Harlem Renaissance. Jessie Redmon Fauset was a key figure of the era. She discovered so many talented writers who went on to be the faces of the movement, but not much is known about her.
So when I learned this book was about her life, I couldn’t request it fast enough from Netgalley. But I didn’t expect fictional accounts of Fauset’s rocky relationship with the much older married Dr. W.E.B. DeBois, the man who hired her as literary editor of NAACP magazine The Crisis, to be so prominent.
Reading about how Jessie transforms The Crisis was more exciting to me than her secret trysts with “Will.” I wasn’t invested in their relationship. She’s accepted that he would never leave his wife. She’s more interested in him leaving the magazine in her hands. She proves herself more than capable of running the show, but her feelings make her put too much faith in Will.
In All About Love, bell hooks says we have control over who we love by choosing who we spend time with? Jessie needs to walk away, but she’s fooled herself into believing she’s only in this for the promotion. I grew tired of her putting Will on a pedestal only to get played.
Fauset was responsible for shaping the careers of Langston Hughes, Nella Larson, Countee Cullen, Jean Toomer, etc. and was a great writer herself. Here, all of her accomplishments are overshadowed by this entanglement with DuBois.
Murray’s Jessie is messy with how she tries to convince others that she’s not involved with Will. Props to his wife Nina. She’s a strong woman for putting up with the disrespect. But someone needed to smack some sense into Jessie because Will might respect her as a creative, but as a woman? Not so much.
Murray did her research for this book. I felt like I was there watching Jessie rub shoulders with all these influential Black people. So many big names are dropped that at times it felt overwhelming, but I still wasn’t satisfied. I just wish Fauset’s illustrious career was at the forefront instead of this affair.
Thanks to Netgalley for this interesting read.
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