Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick by Zora Neale Hurston (2020)

A new collection of 21 Zora Neale Hurston stories, including eight previously uncollected.

Book Review: Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick is an unnecessarily long title (and it's not about golf), but may bring some attention to the eight recently recovered stories within, and the possibility that more undiscovered stories are out there. Zora Neale Hurston seems to be having a second revival (the first began with her rediscovery by Alice Walker in 1975) with the publication of Barracoon in 2018 and now this new edition of her stories. The previous collection of Hurston's short stories from HarperCollins, The Complete Stories (1995) edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., contained 26 works. This new selection has 21 stories, of which eight were previously uncollected, and so contains only half the stories from the 1995 edition. Hitting a Straight Lick contains a variety of stories showing Hurston's wide-ranging talent and versatility: "folklore" stories (she was an anthropologist and folklorist) including a visit from Brer Rabbit and Brer Dog; slice of rural life stories (usually instructional or moral); stories told in a Biblical tone; stories told in bullet points; and her indisputably classic short fiction such as "Sweat" and "The Gilded Six-Bits." Some of the stories seem to be drafts of other stories, some of the same phrases or incidents are repeated in several, and the final story in Hitting a Straight Lick, "The Fire and the Cloud," reads as an excerpt from her penultimate novel, Moses, Man of the Mountain. Most of Hurston's stories were about rural blacks, including her hometown, the all black community of Eatonville, Florida. Little of her work rails against white oppression or concedes that whites were an onerous factor in black life. Hurston's view was that white people were simply a fact of life like bad weather or bad luck. She believed that black culture need not follow white ways, that black people were not deprived or lesser, and that African Americans would be better off going their own way without depending on or grumbling about white people. The villains in her stories are usually other black people, often men. Her career was cut short by her uncompromising independence. One notable element here is how often Hurston writes dialogue in "the idiom -- not the dialect -- of" black people (as she put it). Although it can take a little time to get used to, she felt it provided realism and I believe it followed her training as a folklorist. She let the people speak for themselves. Use of the idiom also provides a stark contrast when the dialogue turns to Hurston's own narration, beautifully and powerfully written. Although I'd prefer a revised "complete" edition of her stories incorporating the new works included in Hitting a Straight Lick, until that day arrives I'm happy to find any recovered fiction by Hurston because we have so little, just four novels, 34 stories.  [3½★]

The Beach at Night by Elena Ferrante (2007)

The first-person account of a child's doll forgotten on the beach overnight.

Children's Book Review: The Beach at Night is Elena Ferrante's children's book, an odd and unsettled kettle of fish. Not necessarily the sure success that readers depend on from her. The premise here, of a beloved doll forgotten on a beach by a little girl, is intriguing and rich with potential. It's also a palimpsest of the missing doll in Ferrante's The Lost Daughter (2006), in which the missing doll is the catalyst for the torrent of emotion that follows. Here the adventure of the lost doll is the story itself, but is very dark and takes a disturbing and frightening turn that can't be ignored. The darkness reminded me of Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane and the scariness reminded me of The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami, but neither of those had the elements here that will make it difficult for parents and children's story time at libraries. Possibly European children are more mature and are exposed to adult material at a younger age, but American parents would spend more time explaining the language and situations (this is a read-to-your-child kind of book) than on the story itself. Given the scariness, comforting the child may also be required. I can't see The Beach at Night ever being read aloud (without censorship) during story time at a library or book shop. The twist is that the ever-reliable Ann Goldstein apparently translated what is relatively mild language in Italian to English words that would be unacceptable for (American) children in a public setting. Although I've read everything Elena Ferrante has written, I'm not her target audience. So I have to look at The Beach at Night as an interesting experiment, an outlier in Ferrante's body of work, an oddity that isn't quite for children or for adults. But I did love the illustrations by Mara Cerri.  [2½★]

The White Man's Guide to White Male Writers ... by Dana Schwartz (2019)

A tongue-in-cheek introduction to Western white male authors for the millennial hipster.

Nonfiction Review: The White Man's Guide to White Male Writers ... is a novelty, a book no one needs but is amusing, silly, and entertaining. This mild and gently humorous take will raise a few chuckles without ruffling many feathers. Most of the smiles will come at the expense of the humorless, such as those earnest young men who keep telling me I must read Cormac McCarthy (I will! I will!), all in the guise of being written by one of said young men. The target audience for these satirical pieces seems to be those comfortably within their contemporary, politically correct and ironic social media bubble who can happily poke fun at these hapless writers and their acolytes. Most of the information presented in The White Man's Guide to White Male ... is general knowledge, but there was some interesting trivia ("Cormac" is not McCarthy's given name). Dana Schwartz seems most upset by how many wives some of these writers have had, but I'm not sure why she expected the wives to put up with these men for long. It's a short book, well padded with illustrations and cocktail recipes, which can be read in a sitting or even while standing in a book shop. A good gift for that right, literate person in your life. Fun, but not a necessary part of your personal library. In fairness, this book could've been much more pointed about cultural views and attitudes. But then it wouldn't be funny.  [3★]