Review by Choice Review
Writer and photographer Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) has been a vexed figure in Harlem Renaissance scholarship, as he was to Harlem Renaissance writers and artists. Rather than simply skewing to one side or the other of this debate, Bernard (Univ. of Vermont) has chosen instead to see Van Vechten not only as a problem for Harlem in the 1920s but also as a figure both white and black and thus representative of the complicated realities of racial identity in the US. Drawn from the fiction, letters, and essays written by and about Van Vechten, Bernard's portrait of the writer's Harlem Renaissance relationships provides a more nuanced picture of him and the intense debates he occasioned as part of his role as a patron and artist in the 1920s. Bernard brings to life the conflicts of Van Vechten's collaborations and creations, and also the passionate debates about art and life that consumed him and his literary counterparts. Written by a scholar who has spent years studying Van Vechten's life and writings, this book provides a different outlook on Van Vechten's work and his importance to the understanding of Harlem and its artistic creations. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. D. E. Magill Longwood University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
This complex biographical treatment of a significant figure in the explosion of black arts that was centered in Harlem in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s nevertheless gives important contextual meaning to what exactly the Harlem Renaissance meant to black participants and what white promotion of black artists signified. As the author posits, Carl Van Vechten was a white man with a passion for blackness. Movie critic, novelist, and photographer Van Vechten possessed enough of his own fame and influence that he could provide struggling black artists not only with emotional sustenance but also lead them to exposure to a wider commercial arena than they might have been able to enter on their own. Bernard recognizes that the subject of her rigorously researched biography has come to symbolize an anxiety about the insidious and undermining nature of white influence on black cultural integrity, and eschewing a traditional cradle-to-grave narrative, she interprets Van Vechten's life in terms of just how messy was the tangle of white-black relations within the structure of the Harlem Renaissance. Obviously, for serious readers. To learn more about important writers of the Harlem Renaissance, see the adjacent Read-alikes column.--Hooper, Brad Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Bernard's landmark study of Carl Van Vechten is by no means a complete portrait; rather, it is "a chronicle of one of his lives, his black life." Van Vechten was a "white man with a passion for blackness," who helped to facilitate the cultural regeneration of Harlem in the 1920s-what we know now as the Harlem Renaissance, but what was referred to then as the New Negro Renaissance. Van Vechten's social standing broke down barriers for African-American artists and writers-such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston-despite the contested integrity of his actions (he was often criticized for whitening the artistic output of "the black mecca"). In an attempt to "celebrate Harlem" (and perhaps himself), Van Vechten-ever the exhibitionist-penned the obviously controversial 1926 novel Nigger Heaven, using the shocking title to draw attention to the book and the vibrant portion of uptown Manhattan that he loved, and to proclaim his insider-status amongst African-Americans. While Bernard examines these ambitious pursuits thoroughly and incisively, there is no pretense of crafting a definitive answer as to whether Van Vechten helped or hindered the lives of those that he influenced; Bernard confesses to merely stoking the fires of discussion and remembrance, telling a rich and dramatic story that explores the "complicated tangle of black and white," as well as the proclivities of a provocative and inarguably significant player in one of America's most creative movements. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Some of My Best Friends: Writings on Interracial Friendships, 2005, etc.), who has devoted years to the study of the Harlem Renaissance, delivers a semester's worth of knowledge in a smooth, edifying narrative. The available documents and well-preserved correspondence in the James Weldon Johnson Collection at Yale University provided the author information for volumes of work on Van Vechten and the Renaissance he promoted. Bernard's subject helped establish that collection and donated all his correspondence to it while he encouraged his friends to do the same. His own work, Negro Heaven (1925), was a bestseller and drew both raves and rants. Some referred to it as a black book written by a white man, while others saw it as an illustration of the power of language in the relation between race and art. The development of literature by and about African-Americans owes its birth to Van Vechten, and Bernard ably brings him to life.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
