Some historical fiction novels have a way of taking you to a place and time you’ve been longing to go to but did not realize it. Such was the case for me when I read Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray, a biographical novel about Jessie Redmon Fauset, the African American novelist, critic, poet, and literary editor who mentored young Black writers like Langston Hughes, Nella Larsen, and Countee Cullen during the Harlem Renaissance. By the time I finished the book, I wanted everyone in America to read it. One hundred years after her tenure as the literary editor of The Crisis, a magazine founded by W.E.B. Du Bois in 1910, Fauset’s personal and professional story remains as fresh and relevant as ever.
As the novel opens, Victoria Christopher Murray sweeps readers into the rich cultural atmosphere of Harlem in 1919 when Jessie arrives to begin her new job as the literary editor of The Crisis. Published by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), The Crisis is America’s foremost magazine tailored to the African American experience through its focus on civil rights, history, politics, and culture, as well as race relations and the damaging effects of prejudice. Prior to her arrival, Jessie has been teaching high school in Washington, DC.
Readers quickly discover that Jessie also bears a secret as she begins her new life in Harlem. She and W.E.B. Du Bois, a married man, have been having an affair for five years. Under the weight of their subterfuge, Jessie must now navigate her feelings for Du Bois in the close quarters of the Harlem community and the office of The Crisis, where all eyes are upon her. She is Du Bois’ constant companion and among his closest associates. The threat of someone discovering their affair is ever present.
Jessie, 31 years old and a minister’s daughter, bears her secret with the shame and guilt readers might expect. So deeply inspired by Du Bois, however, a Pan-African civil rights activist, sociologist, and historian, Jessie is willing to accept the limitations of their liaison, for she has no wish to marry, and theirs, she believes, is a spiritual connection that transcends society’s boundaries.
One can see why Jessie is so enamored with Du Bois. He is a larger-than-life figure, handsome, articulate, confident, and an outspoken personality critical of the way societies across the globe condescend to people of African descent. He inspires her to be bold, to reach for what on the surface seems insurmountable.
I particularly enjoyed how Murray presents Harlem as a character in its own right in the story, bringing to life its music, food, and dress. All are on vivid display throughout the narrative, and she captures Harlem’s impact on Jessie. Not only is African American literature flourishing; the art, music, and theater scene is on fire, and Jessie is witness to it all.
The world, however, is still a hostile place for people of African descent. Bigotry and prejudice remain severe barriers that prevent them from enjoying full and equal access to education, economic prosperity, and acceptance by the broader society. Jessie commits to eliminating these injustices by working alongside Du Bois. But in the end, she must decide something much closer to her personal core: who is she, and to what does she truly aspire? And is she willing to live a half life forever in the shadow of W.E.B. Du Bois?
So who was the real Jessie Redmon Fauset?
Harlem Rhapsody is fiction, but it does such an accurate job depicting Fauset’s true story that I won’t repeat here what you will learn from reading the novel. I don’t want to spoil the plot for you. But there are several book end notes to her life that bear mention.
Jessie Redmon Fauset was born in 1882 in New Jersey and grew up in Philadelphia. She attended the prestigious Philadelphia High School for Girls and may have been the only African American in her class. Upon graduating, she wanted to go to Bryn Mawr College, but Bryn Mawr was reluctant to accept her as their first Black student, so they helped her get a scholarship to Cornell University.
She graduated from Cornell in 1905 and would have moved back to Philadelphia, but its schools would not hire her because of her race. Instead she taught high school in Baltimore and later in Washington, DC. Du Bois and Fauset began corresponding when she submitted poems and essays to The Crisis, and the two formed an intimate long-distance relationship. As the novel portrays, at his urging, she moved to New York in 1919 to work for The Crisis.
Fauset left her job at The Crisis in 1926 and hoped to continue working in publishing, but her race kept her from being hired. She returned to teaching, which enabled her to focus on her own writing. In all she wrote four novels in which she examined issues surrounding race and identity, writing about middle-and upper-class Black characters. She published There is Confusion in 1924 while still working at The Crisis. After she left her position as its literary editor, she wrote Plum Bun (1928). There is Confusion and Plum Bun both received literary acclaim. Her later works, The Chinaberry Tree: A Novel of American Life (1931), and Comedy American Style (1933) received less praise but, like her first two novels, are still read today.
In 1929 Jessie married Herbert Harris. By then she was 47 years old. The couple lived in New Jersey until his death in 1958. Jessie returned to Philadelphia and died in 1961.
It's tragic that unjust attitudes toward race denied Jessie Redmon Fauset a continued role in the publishing business. In his autobiography, Langston Hughes called her one of “the three people who mid-wifed the so-called New Negro literature into being. They nursed us along until our books were born.”1 One has to ask, how many other authors she might have mentored had she been allowed to remain in publishing?
Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray. Don’t miss it.
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1 Langston Hughes cited by Uella Rodriguez, The Crisis Magazine, Tufts Archival Research Center. Retrievied online. https://tarc.tufts.edu/about/news/The%20Crisis%20Magazine#:~:text=The%20Crisis%20is%20a%20publication,%22%5B1%5D%20The%20Crisis%20was