Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher MurrayMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Jessie Redmon Fauset moves to Harlem from Washington D.C. in 1919 to take a position as the first literary editor of The Crisis, the NAACP magazine. She works with W.E.B. DuBois in a position that he created for her. Over the next six years she becomes "the midwife of the literary side of the New Negro Movement and the Harlem Renaissance" through her work at the magazine and the young authors and poets she mentors -- Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen and more. She is also in a longstanding relationship with W.E.B. DuBois, much to the chagrin of her family members.
This was a fascinating account of a time and place I was not very familiar with. The reader is immersed in the setting of Harlem and New York City from 1919-1925 -- restaurants, music, jazz clubs, literature, poetry and more. Jessie's role in the development of these authors was profound; she was an inspirational Black author, editor and business woman, paving the way for others to follow.
Once again, I loved Victoria Christopher Murray's writing and her ability to bring historical figures to life through her well-researched fiction. I first became aware of her writing with The Personal Librarian, another historical fiction book that she wrote with Marie Benedict about Belle da Costa Greene, the personal librarian to J. P. Morgan.
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