What do You think about The Ways Of White Folks (1990)?
I do not recommend finishing this book while sitting on the bus at the end of a work day, particularly while the cutest little black boy sits laughing on his father's lap in a seat across from you. This book took me longer than I expected to finish. Often, after a story, I would have to put it down and leave it for a few days. It just isn't possible to move into the next tragic tale, like the nightly news. Happy endings were few. Thank you for this book, Langston Hughes, and fuck you all who made these stories too real.
—Kate
'Dream Deferred' has long been my favorite poem - it's a little strange that it is, because I can't tell you why, but I know that I love it - so a few years ago, I looked it up online and learned about this book. The review said that this was Hughes's only book of prose, and had he continued to write like this, he would have been more popular or more well remembered. Reading between the lines, I translated that as "had he written more like white people, he would have been better."However, being a 'white people', I knew that I would enjoy the book and bought it. I began reading it as soon as it arrived and was not disappointed. Hughes paints portrait after portrait of a world both foreign, thanks to the passage of time, and familiar, thanks to the persistence of ignorance and racism. The letter from the young man 'passing', to his mother, broke my heart. I knew the ending of the story about the violinist before the second paragraph, but it still drew me in. This book should be required reading for everyone.
—Ursula
The connecting thread in this collection of stories is the relations between white people and black people in the first half of the 20th century. In my opinion, in these stories, it is impossible for the two sides to come together and have an authentic human connection because of the residue of slavery and the presence of Jim Crow. The resignation of all the characters to the way things are is more true to life than many stories I've read which deal with similar issues (major exception to this is Bert in the story, "Father and Son"), and Hughes avoids making this into a series of simplistic morality plays.The range of characters and situations were one of the strengths of the book and the variety gives a the message of the book a greater impact. Superb book. Well written and smart.
—Mickey
