Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance

From one of the greatest writers of our time (Toni Morrison)--the author of Barracoon and Their Eyes Were Watching God--a collection of remarkable stories, including eight lost Harlem Renaissance tales now available to a wide audience for the first time.

In 1925, Barnard student Zora Neale Hurston--the sole black student at the college--was living in New York, desperately striving for a toe-hold on the world. During this period, she began writing short works that captured the zeitgeist of African American life and transformed her into one of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Nearly a century later, this singular talent is recognized as one of the most influential and revered American artists of the modern period.

Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick is an outstanding collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African American folk culture. Brought together for the first time in one volume, they include eight of Hurston's lost Harlem stories, which were found in forgotten periodicals and archives. These stories challenge conceptions of Hurston as an author of rural fiction and include gems that flash with her biting, satiric humor, as well as more serious tales reflective of the cultural currents of Hurston's world. All are timeless classics that enrich our understanding and appreciation of this exceptional writer's voice and her contributions to America's literary traditions.

“"The splendid stories...combine the warmth and affection of an insider with the documentary rigor--and ironic amusement--of a neutral observer...[and] a showcase for a remarkably vital dialect."”

"A revelation not just in its celebration of Hurston's lesser-known efforts as a writer of short stories but also in the subjects and settings that it takes on."

-- "Washington Post"

"Helps illuminate Hurston's path to iconic status. Its 21 stories are presented in the order in which she composed them. As a result, readers can note the progression from earnest 'apprentice' works and experiments with form to the polished brilliance of her best-known stories."

-- "New York Times"

-- "Wall Street Journal"

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was a novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist whose fictional and factual accounts of black heritage remain unparalleled. In addition to her most celebrated work, the 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, her books include Barracoon, a New York Times bestseller.

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