The race consciousness that spoils so much Negro literature is completely absent here. Miss Hurston is less impressed by her own color than most Aryan redheads. She gives one chapter to “My People”—perhaps the most sensible passage on the subject that has ever been written. She agrees with Booker T. Washington that if the stuff is in you it is likely to come out and that if it isn’t it doesn’t make any difference whether you are white, black, green, or cerise. Some people, she says, have made a whole career out of moaning, “My people! My people!” She thinks they would have been better engaged in some useful labor. The only thing she claims for the Negro is perhaps a little more capacity for fancy and enthusiasm than the average white man possesses.
“The most amusing chapter is Miss Hurston’s delightfully frank treatise on love. It makes sense, but few people have had the reckless heroism to come out with it.”
The most amusing chapter is Miss Hurston’s delightfully frank treatise on love. It makes sense, but few people have had the reckless heroism to come out with it. She has had one “great” love and still has it; she doesn’t know yet how it is going to come out, since the chosen gentleman is jealous of her work, as well as of all other gentlemen discovered in even remote proximity to Zora. Miss Hurston, with a prescience of trouble, has tried to break herself of the man several times without success. Occasionally she feels like being in love with someone else, incidentally—and is, briefly. When these unfortunate swains remind her of tender passages she is all too often feeling like “a character member of the Union League Club” (this may be a slander) and the recalled endearments are “the third day of Thanksgiving turkey hash.”
The conclusion is: Love is a funny thing; love is a blossom—if you want your finger bit, poke it at a possum.
It may be judged that the book is rich in humor and this is true; it is real humor—and humor of character, from the old deacon who prays, “Oh, Lawd, I got something to ask You, but I know You can’t do it,” to Zora’s own feud, nourished through the years and beyond all scholarship and honors, with her gross stepmother. The old lady, at last reports, was in the hospital with some malignant growth on her neck—Miss Hurston says, quite frankly and honestly, that she wishes the woman had two necks.
“[Dust Tracks on a Road] is real humor—and humor of character.”
She has, too, a philosophic feeling for the statement of her friend, Ethyl Waters, “Don’t care how good the music is, Zora, you can’t dance on every set.”
It is a fine, rich, autobiography, and heartening to anyone, white, black, or tan.
“Zora Hurston’s Story”
Excerpted from the New York Times Book Review, November 29, 1942
by Beatrice Sherman
“[Hurston’s] story is forthright and without frills.”
HERE IS A THUMPING STORY, though it has none of the horrid earmarks of the Alger-type climb. Zora Neale Hurston has a considerable reputation as anthropologist and writer. When her autobiography begins, she is one of eight children in a Negro family with small prospects of making a name for herself. Yet her story is forthright and without frills. Its emphasis lies on her fighting spirit in the struggle to achieve the education she felt she had to have. The uses to which it was put—good uses too—were the fruit of things that cropped up spontaneously, demanding to be done.
Hard work and natural talent were her mainstays. Bad luck and good came in mixed portions. But always Zora Neale Hurston felt that she was a special, a different sort of person—not in any unpleasantly cocky way, but as almost anyone does who has energy and ability and wants to use them. . . .
Her whole story is live and vivid. Told in gutsy language, it is full of the graphic metaphors and similes that color Negro speech at its richest, sometimes in direct quotations from folk stories—those lying sessions at the village store—and sometimes woven in with her own warm style. There is no “hush-mouth modesty” about the book, for Zora Neale Hurston would not “low-rate the human race” by undue expurgation of her story. . . .
Further along there are philosophical chapters on books (the Hurston books), love, “My People!” and religion. Then impression simmers down to a feeling that the author regards the Negro race much as she regards any other race—as made up of some good, some bad, and a lot of medium. The problems they face are those of any other race, with the disadvantage of being a younger lot. Anyway, her story is an encouraging and enjoyable one for any member of the human race. Any race might well be proud to have more members of the caliber and stamina of Zora Neale Hurston.
“There is no ‘hush-mouth modesty’ about the book.”
Read on
Have You Read?
More by Zora Neale Hurston
JONAH’S GOURDVINE
Zora Neale Hurston’s first novel tells the story of John Buddy Pearson, a young minister who loves too many women for his own good even though he is married to Lucy, his one true love. In this sympathetic portrait of a man and his community, Hurston shows that faith and tolerance and good intentions cannot resolve the tension between the spiritual and the physical.
MULES AND MEN
The fruit of Hurston’s labors as a folklorist and anthropologist, this celebrated treasury of black American folklore includes stories, “big old lies,” songs, Vodou customs, superstitions—all the humor and wisdom that is the matchless heritage of American blacks.
THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD
The epic tale of Janie Crawford, whose quest for identity takes her on a journey during which she learns what love is, experiences life’s joys and sorrows, and comes home to herself in peace. Her passionate story prompted Alice Walker to say, “There is no book more important to me than this one.”
About the Author
ZORA NEALE HURSTON (1891–1960) was a novelists, folklorist, and anthropologist whose fictional and factual accounts of black heritage remain unparalleled. Her many books include Jonah’s Gourd Vine; Mules and Men; Seraph on the Suwanee; Moses, Man of the Mountain; and Every Tongue Got to Confess.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
BOOKS BY ZORA NEALE HURSTON
Jonah’s Gourd Vine
Mules and Men
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Tell My Horse
Moses, Man of the Mountain
Dust Tracks on a Road
Seraph on the Suwanee
The Sanctified Church
Spunk: The Selected Short Stories of Zora Neale Hurston
Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life
(a play written with Langston Hughes)
The Complete Stories
Every Tongue Got to Confess
CHILDREN’S BOOKS BY ZORA NEALE HURSTON
What’s the Hurry Fox?
The Skull Talks Back
The Six Fools
Lies and Other Tall Tales
Credits
All photos courtesy of the Estate of Zora Neale Hurston
Copyright
This book was originally published in 1942 by J. B. Lippincott, Inc. The restored text was published in 1995 by The Library of America as part of Folklore, Memoirs & Other Writings.
DUST TRACKS ON A ROAD. Copyright © 1942 by Zora Neale Hurston. Copyright renewed 1970 by John C. Hurston. Previously unpublished passages copyright © 1995 by the Estate of Zora Neale Hurston. Foreword copyright © 1991 by Maya Angelou. Afterword, Selected Bibliography, and Chronology copyright © 1990 by Henry Louis Gates. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
r />
First Harper Perennial edition published 1996
First Harper Perennial Modern Classics edition published 2006.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Hurston, Zora Neale
Dust tracks on a road : an autobiography / Zora Neale Hurston, with a foreword by Maya Angelou.—1st Harper Perennial Modern Classics ed.
p. cm
“Originally published in 1942 by J. B. Lippincott, Inc. The restored text was published in 1995 by the Library of America as part of Folklore, memoirs & other writings”—T.p. verso.
“First Harper Perennial edition published 1996”—T.p. verso.
ISBN-10: 0-06-085408-1
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-085408-9
1. Hurston, Zora Neale. 2. Authors, American—Twentieth century—Biography. 3. African American women—Southern States—Biography. 4. Southern States—Social life and customs. 5. Folklorists—United States—Biography. 6. African American authors—Biography. 7. African Americans—Southern States. 8. Harlem Renaissance. I. Title.
PS3515.U789Z465 2006
813’.52—dc22
[B]
2005052616
EPub Edition © March 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-201043-8
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900
Toronto, ON, M5R, 3L2, Canada
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com
* [Hurston’s footnote.] The word Nigger used in this sense does not mean race. It means a weak, contemptible person of any race.
* That is a Negro saying that means “Don’t be too ambitious. You are a Negro and they are not meant to have but so much.”
* The word Nigger used in this sense does not mean race. It means a weak. contemptible person of any race.
* A coudar is a fresh-water terrapin.
* The “Love Feast” or “Experience Meeting” is a meeting held either the Friday night or the Sunday morning before Communion Since no one is supposed to take Communion unless he or she is in harmony with all other members, there are great protestations of love and friendship. It is an opportunity to re-affirm faith plus anything the imagination might dictate.
Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road
(Series: # )
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends