Recommendations from our site
“It’s the story of Janie Crawford, who returns to her hometown in Florida in her forties. She looks back at her life and marriages. In many ways, the book recounts a conventional female journey of discovery and empowerment. There’s the bad first marriage, the marriage that seemed better but soon turned bad as well, and the third, better marriage which then ends tragically. It travels around a well-trodden circuit, but because it’s about a Black woman, the stakes are that bit higher and the book is fraught with structural racism and difficult compromises.” Read more...
The Best Historical Fiction Set in the American South
Xan Brooks, Novelist
“Hurston gives us one of the first true love stories in African American writing.” Read more...
The Best African American Literature
Farah Jasmine Griffin, Literary Scholar
