I received a pre publication copy of Victoria Christopher"s latest novel Harlem Rhapsody. It tells the story of Jessie Redmon Fauset, the literary editor of The NAACP's magazine, The Crisis, from 1919-1925. While Harlem Rhapsody is historical fiction, Miss Fauset's accomplishments are not. In an era where women, especially black women, had limited rights and limited access to education, she was a Cornell graduate, a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and an accomplished writer and a poet. She nurtured major poets and writers including Countee Cullen, Nella Larson, Jean Toomer and Langston Hughes, who called her the midwife of the Harlem Renaissance. She also rubbed shoulders with Paul Robeson, Ethel Waters, Marcus Garvey, and Charles MacKay. It was enlightening to learn about her world.

This novel is also a love story of sorts. She was appointed the literary editor of The Crisis by W.E.B. Dubois, the civil rights icon, her mentor and her lover, He was a monumental historical figure and very impactful on Miss Fauset's trajectory. However, I would have preferred more history and less relationship. The love story detracts from this woman, seemingly lost to history, and overshadows her individual achievements.

It was interesting to learn that Ms. Murray had only recently learned about Miss Fauset. I am glad that she decided to discover the renaissance life of Jessie Redmon Fauset and share it with us. I recommend this novel to those interested in history, women's history, the Harlem Renaissance, United States history, and black history. For me, it was a welcome education.

This was an enjoyable read. Jessie Redmon Fauset is not somebody I had been familiar with before this and am glad to have learned about her. The Harlem Renaissance was an important time in our history bringing us several prolific writers, artists, musicians and performers. It is always heartening to read about strong women, especially women of color, and this story brought to life the emotions, struggles and family life of Ms. Fauset in a way that takes makes you feel as if you are there with her. It touches on the suffragette movement, the NAACP, black culture and much more. Overall, an enjoyable read with much historical research.

Thank you to Book Browse, Berkley and NetGalley for an advance readers copy of this book.

This inspiring, evocative novel joins several others by the same author about important but forgotten Black women in the first half of 20th century America.
Born in 1882, Jessie Redmon Fauset was a Black feminist who, in 1919, became the first literary editor of “The Crisis,” the premier Negro* periodical of its time. With impeccable academic credentials (BA from Cornell, Phi Beta Kappa; MA from University of Pennsylvania), Fauset was dedicated to changing the racist world. In her role at “The Crisis,” she discovered and nurtured young Negro poets and writers, and eventually became a celebrated novelist herself.

Fauset also was devoted to WEB Du Bois, the founder and editor of “The Crisis,” with whom she apparently had a long-time affair. This affair provides the framework for the book, as she comes to Harlem because WEB made her literary editor, and she constantly has to choose between work and love, and the knowledge that her great love is morally objectionable to her family, and must be hidden from her friends.
With vivid character portrayals, the author introduces a panoply of writers and thinkers from the Harlem Renaissance, populating the book with others whose stories invite further reading.

The book also raises a philosophical question: in the Author’s Note Murray says that there is clear evidence of this affair between Fauset and Du Bois. However, it was hidden, if rumored, and I am not sure why the author chose to build the story of a remarkable woman, of any time or race, around something that she was so secretive and, presumably, uncomfortable about being known.

It does make for engrossing reading, but as with other novels based so heavily on a real person’s life, it raises questions about the choices to fictionalize private, protected areas of that life – and will add to the many ways this novel makes for good book group discussions.
*This was the term favored at that time by the Black community.

I really enjoyed this book. I did not know this part of history, the publishing world, the struggle to be black along with being a woman. This is based on the life Jesse Redmon Fauset. She becomes the literary editor of the black magazine The Crisis. Jesse is determined to make the magazine the best there is by finding young black talent and soon every black writer in America wants to be published in her magazine. She is having an affair with her editor, the founder of the magazine. She doesn't want marriage or children. My only criticism was the author used so many words I had to look up as I was not familiar with them. It disrupted the flow of the story.