Dorothy West's paradise : a biography of class and color / Cherene Sherrard-Johnson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sherrard-Johnson, Cherene, 1973-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

West, Dorothy, 1907-1998.

West, Dorothy.

Authors, American--20th century--Biography.

Authors, American.

African American authors--Biography.

African American authors.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (244 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, c2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Dorothy West is best known as one of the youngest writers involved in the Harlem Renaissance. Subsequently, her work is read as a product of the urban aesthetics of this artistic movement. But West was also intimately rooted in a very different milieu—Oak Bluffs, an exclusive retreat for African Americans on Martha’s Vineyard. She played an integral role in the development and preservation of that community. In the years between publishing her two novels, 1948’s The Living is Easy and the 1995 bestseller The Wedding, she worked as a columnist for the Vineyard Gazette. Dorothy West’s Paradise captures the scope of the author’s long life and career, reading it alongside the unique cultural geography of Oak Bluffs and its history as an elite African American enclave—a place that West envisioned both as a separatist refuge and as a space for interracial contact. An essential book for both fans of West’s fiction and students of race, class, and American women’s lives, Dorothy West’s Paradise offers an intimate biography of an important author and a privileged glimpse into the society that shaped her work.

Contents:

They lost us the beach: A legend of Oak Bluffs

Childhood sketches

Dorothy West's typewriter

To Russia with love

New challenges

The living is easy

Cottager's corner

Two weddings.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-283-86453-3

0-8135-5224-9

OCLC:

785785254