Dust Tracks on a Road

by Zora Neale Hurston, Maya Angelou (Introduction)

Dust Tracks on a Road is the bold, poignant, and funny autobiography of novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, one of American literature's most compelling and influential authors. Hurston's powerful novels of the South--including Jonah's Gourd Vine and, most famously, Their Eyes Were Watching God--continue to enthrall readers with their lyrical grace, sharp detail, and captivating emotionality. First published in 1942, Dust Tracks on a Road is Hurston's personal story, told in her own words.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, Classics, African American, Autobiography, History

324 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1942

About the author

Novels, including Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), and nonfiction writings of American folklorist Zora Neale Hurston give detailed accounts of African American life in the South.

In 1925, Hurston, one of the leaders of the literary renaissance, happening in Harlem, produced the short-lived literary magazine Fire!! alongside Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman shortly before she entered Barnard College. This literary movement developed into the Harlem renaissance.

Hurston applied her Barnard ethnographic training to document African American folklore in her critically acclaimed book Mules and Men alongside fiction Their Eyes Were Watching God . She also assembled a folk-based performance dance group that recreated her Southern tableau with one performance on Broadway.

People awarded a Guggenheim fellowship to Hurston to travel to Haiti and conduct research on conjure in 1937. Her significant work ably broke into the secret societies and exposed their use of drugs to create the Vodun trance, also a subject of study for fellow dancer-anthropologist Katherine Dunham, then at the University of Chicago.

In 1954, the Pittsburgh Courier assigned Hurston, unable to sell her fiction, to cover the small-town murder trial of Ruby McCollum, the prosperous black wife of the local lottery racketeer, who had killed a racist white doctor. Hurston also contributed to Woman in the Suwanee County Jail , a book by journalist and civil rights advocate William Bradford Huie.

Reviews

[Rowena · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There is something wonderful to behold just ahead. Let's go see what it is." - Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road

I was a bit apprehensive about reading this book as I’ve read about the tragedies Zora Neale Hurston experienced in her life. This, however, turned out to be one of the most marvelous autobiographies I have ever read and more inspirational than discouraging.

I loved reading about Hurston’s childhood; she was such a precocious and inquisitive child who could easily have been stifled creatively by the culture she lived in, a culture and society that did not encourage book-reading or learning, yet found ways to grow her creativity and imagination.

Her adventures and experiences as an adult were also interesting. I loved her opinionated, unapologetic personality. Her ideas about race and religion were probably considered radical in those days; she was definitely way ahead of her time.

And her writing, wow! She was adept at writing using different literary styles and idiomatic expressions, and she also respected the Southern dialect and people, therefore her understanding for the need of their different linguistic expression came across clearly in her writing and thought process. Her writing is also witty and she's also a wonderful storyteller. Her autobiography has several stories and folktales included. Also, she dislikes math as much as I do, as is evidenced by the following quote: "I did not do well in mathematics. Why should A minus B? Who the devil was X anyway?" I concur!

Her anthropology background and her positive experiences with white people made her see people beyond the veil of race, and instead just see the person. I thought that was wonderful.

I would unquestionably invite Zora Neale Hurston to my fantasy literary dinner party. She’s definitely inspirational.

"My search for knowledge of things took me into many strange places and adventures." - Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road

[emma]

the only thing that could sound better to me than zora neale hurston writing fiction is zora neale hurston writing about her life

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

The incomparable Zora Neale Hurston. I absolutely loved this autobiography. Not because it reveals any revelations or events, but because it’s a world building experience. Hurston is a story teller and for me, the way that she tells a story is an eleven. The thing to remember is that Hurston is an anthropologist and she has a scientist eye and a poetic literary talent. It's a fantastic combination. Her story has so many common idioms like when she talks about "doing the dozens" or shrugs and says "my people, my people". Or one of my favorite quotes

" If you haven’t got it, you can’t show it. If you have got it, you can’t hide it."

These things are deep in the black culture and this and reminiscent of my childhood and my extended family. Listening to Bahni Turpin read this book felt like I was listening to an aunt or grandmother recounting their life. An audio holideck! A great book expertly performed creating feelings of warmth and connection. Loved it!

4.5 Stars

Listened to the audio book. Bahni Turpin made Hurston come alive. A really great performance!!

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5★

This memoir was so rich & vibrant & so different from any other memoir I have read.

Zora's life was rich & interesting & she has such a way with words.

Her determination to get an education had interesting parallels with New Zealand author Ruth Park & if you can get hold of A Fence Around the Cuckoo I would really recommend reading it to compare.

For me, the book fell away slightly at the end. The book's publisher had demanded critical comments about American race relations be removed & I am wondering if that is why the later part of the book had a slightly ragged feel.

But I really admired Zora's invincible spirit & would like to know more about her life.

https://wordpress.com/view/carolshess...

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fell in love with Zora Neale Hurston - anthropologist, writer, filmmaker, heretic - in the autumn of 2021.

As an author and public speaker, Zora was not above taking our religious institutions to task.

“You cannot have knowledge and worship at the same time. Mystery is the essence of divinity… It seems to me that organized creeds are collections of words around a wish. I feel no need for such.”

Did I mention she was a heretic?

“I do not pretend to read God’s mind. If he has a plan of the Universe worked out to the smallest detail, it would be folly for me to presume to get down on my knees and attempt to revise it. That, to me, seems the highest form of sacrilege… Prayer seems to me a cry of weakness, and an attempt to avoid, by trickery, the rules of the game as laid down.”

Politically, she favored diplomacy over military intervention…

“We [the United States] consider machine gun bullets good laxatives for heathens who get constipated with toxic ideas about a country of their own.”

…and philosophically, she challenged our stereotypes and embraced our shared humanity.

“…I feel that I have lived. I have the joy and pain of strong friendships. I have served and been served. I have made enemies of which I am not ashamed. I have been faithless, and then I have been faithful and steadfast until the blood ran down into my shoes. I have loved unselfishly with all the ardor of a strong heart, and I have hated with all the power of my soul. What waits for me in the future? I do not know. I cannot even imagine, and I am glad for that. But already I have touched the four corners of the horizon, for from hard searching it seems to me that tears and laughter, love and hate, make up the sum of life.”

In spite of all she contributed and accomplished, Zora Neale Hurston spent her final years working as a housemaid. She died in poverty and relative obscurity on 28 January, 1960.

Dearest Zora, our differences not withstanding (as in black/white, conservative/liberal, theist/atheist, living/deceased) I am so looking forward to spending more time with you.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh the magic and mystery that was Zora Neale Hurston. An indescribable childhood, deplorable kindred, a love life that was itself a puzzle. (In fact she does admit that her true love story with her second husband was somehow interwoven into her novel: "I tried to embalm all the tenderness of my passion for him in Their Eyes Were Watching God).

The first sentence of this memoir is a lyrical ambush:

Like the dead-seeming, cold rocks, I have memories within that came out of the material that went to make me. Time and place have had their say.

Zora Neale Hurston was a highly acclaimed writer, publishing four novels, two books of folklore, an autobiography, and more than fifty short pieces between the Harlem Renaissance and the end of the Korean War. She was seen as a dominant writer who brought the consciousness of the black woman to literature. Her use of dialect and vernacular was her framework. Her work was so important to the next generation of women writers that Alice Walker made it her literary quest to find her: "In Search of Zora Neale Hurston."

What is interesting is that at times, like the title of Walker's article, you do find yourself searching for Hurston throughout her memoir.

She was born in Alabama but considered Eatonville, Florida her home. Though she grew up in the Jim Crow south, she was surrounded by people who looked like her because Eatonville was a small black incorporated town. Hurston didn't want to touch the topic of race, didn't believe in dwelling on it, even excuses the white man who helped with her birth when he referenced the n-word. There is a chapter in her book devoted to the racial oppression of her time and aside from that, race is only seen through subtleties in conversation, like this one with her grandmother who had "seen slavery:"

Git down offa dat gate post! You li'l sow, you!...Setting up dere looking dem white folks right in de face! They's gowine to lynch you, yet...Youse too brazen to live long.

She was a woman who didn't believe in race or class. To her, they were easy generalizations and she chose individualism instead. According to her, "Negroes were neither better nor worse than any other race." She didn't believe in prayer: "Prayer seems to me a cry of weakness." Didn't believe in organized creed: "Seems to me that organized creeds are collections of words around a wish." And yet she believed in the rituals of Hoodoo:

In New Orleans, I delved into Hoodoo, or sympathetic magic... I learned the routines for making and breaking marriages; driving off and punishing enemies; influencing the minds of judges and juries in favor of clients; killing by remote control and other things...In another ceremony, I had to sit at the crossroads at midnight in complete darkness and meet the Devil and make a compact...

There is inert gloom and placid darkness to be found in the memoir. Picture a person on a dark, cold night, smoking a cigarette next to a campfire, telling you a story so enticing, you want to hear the end even while parts of it gives you goosebumps. At times you don't know what to expect from this story, like in the beginning for instance, when Hurston tells you: "I stood in a world of vanished communion with my kind." Was she saying something indirectly? And then: "I had knowledge before its time. I knew my fate. I knew that I would be an orphan and homeless...I would stand beside a dark pool of water and see a huge fish move slowly away at a time when I would be somehow in the depth of despair."

All one can do is wonder about these passages because even with the graceful storytelling and vibrant language, much is mysterious. Some chapters feel like essays, some like avoidance. At times Hurston gets close only to disappear into narrative. Even when she gets to the 1929 Hurricane in New Orleans, she gives a few sentences of vagueness.

You still wonder, beneath it all, who was Hurston?

It makes you want to pick up a biography wherein you see her from another's eyes (probably the one written by Valerie Boyd ) and perhaps answer some questions that even she couldn't have answered:

1.With all her success, why did she only get royalties of $943.75?
2.Why did she disappear into obscurity?
3.How was it, that she receives two Guggenheims, is hired as a story consultant at Paramount, later works as a librarian, but ends up working as a maid even while her work receives awards?
4. How does she go from saying, "Negroes were neither better nor worse than any other race," to publishing an article entitled, "What White Publishers Won't Print?"

[Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I had been lonely; I had been bare and bony of comfort and love... Now, I was to take up my pilgrim's stick and go outside again. Maybe it would be different now...I took a firm grip on the only weapon I had- hope, and set my feet. Maybe everything would be all right from now on. Maybe. I put on my shoes and I started." -Zora Neale Hurston

In her memoir, Dust Tracks On A Road, Zora tells her origin story. She came from humble beginnings in Eatonville, FL, the first incorporated Black town. The daughter of John and Lucy, Zora was a creative and sassy child, much to the chagrin of her father and maternal grandmother. Zora's mother however encouraged her storytelling and pushed her to set her sights high. Dust Tracks chronicles Zora's journeys as a young girl to middle aged woman on how she became the writer and anthropologist that she was. The book is quite inspiring if you think of how her life could have been, she could have stayed working as domestic all her life, but folks encouraged her to go back to school. After receiving her education she transitioned into doing research where she experiences some wild events such as: 1. almost getting "cut to death", 2. dangerous Hoodoo initiation practices, and 3. photographing a zombie. Many of these events sound scary and some were even funny, especially the time when she fought her stepmother.

There were places where I wanted more - especially the chapter on her books, which I found too short. However, I did find it interesting that she said that she "regrets all of my books". The last few chapters, seemed a little out of place to me. They seemed more like essays as opposed to memoir.

There are four more chapters in the Appendix which read like early versions of chapters in the main text. There are some interesting sections in there as well. I got a good laugh reading the "My People My People" chapter, especially on her description of the variations of Black complexions and her views on James Weldon Johnson.

Dust Tracks was published in 1942, when Zora was 51 years old. She would live 18 more years, which of course makes me wonder what happened during the rest of her life. I'm hoping to learn more about it when I read Valerie Boyd's Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zora Neale Hurston was a successful writer and anthropologist, a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, and buddies with Ethel Waters. She founded a school for the dramatic arts, and was twice awarded the Guggenheim fellowship. Yet she died poor in obscurity.

From my edition’s introduction by Robert Hemenway:
“A decade after the publication of Dust Tracks, Hurston was working as a maid in a wealthy Miami home, hoping to save enough money to fund her next book project. Her struggle for survival as a writer represents the struggle of a whole generation of pre-1960s black artists.”

While reading this autobiography, I had to put what I knew about the end of her life in a little room and shut the door on it. It just didn’t fit with the brilliance and potential so clear in these pages.

Their Eyes Were Watching God made me fall in love with Zora, and Dust Tracks on a Road made me understand why. She has a way of seeing that is so fresh and rare and sparkling.

“I don’t have much of a herd instinct. Or if I must be connected with the flock, let me be the shepherd of my ownself. That is just the way I am made.”

And when you take her unique viewpoint and mix it with natural ability, the culture she grew up in, and the early love she had for books and stories, you get a way with language I find drop-dead gorgeous.

“There is something about poverty that smells like death. Dead dreams dropping off the heart like leaves in a dry season and rotting around the feet; impulses smothered too long in the fetid air of underground caves. The soul lives in a sickly air. People can be slave-ships in shoes.”

She was profound, but also so funny. I wish I could have hung out with her. I would have invited her to make another trip to California, which she described this way:

“Of course, coming from Florida, I feel like the man when he saw a hunch back for the first time--it seems that California does wear its hips a bit high. I mean all those mountains. Too much of the state is standing up on edge. To my notion, land is supposed to lie down and be walked on--not rearing up, staring you in the face.”

I highly recommend this book to fans of Hurston’s writing. Discover how Zora struggled as a child, how in spite of so many obstacles, she was determined to keep learning. Get a glimpse into the way she saw the world, including frank thoughts about race, religion and politics. You may be as grateful as I am that, even though she sadly didn’t end up reaping the benefits of her talent, lucky for us, we still can.

[Chrissie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Through reading this book one discovers much about Zora Neale Hurston's life and personality. She was a short story writer, novelist (author of Their Eyes Were Watching God), anthropologist and folklorist. She lived from 1891 to 1960.This book was published in 1942, 18 years before her death. A chronology listing the important events of her entire life is found at the book's end. She died in poverty and was buried in an unmarked grave. In 1973 author Alice Walker saw that a gravestone was installed with the words "A Genius of the South."

Zora was born in Notasulga, Alabama, but at the age of three her family moved to Eatonville, Florida, one of the first self-governing all-black municipalities in the United States. This is where she grew up, this is where she called home and this is the town she uses as a backdrop for many of her stories. From the start, as a young child she was brazen, sassy and curious. She had opinions and there was no stopping her.

The book covers her youth, her education and what she did with her life. That she became a folklorist shows. It is reflected in how she tells of her life; her experiences are related through stories. These stories have dialogs and songs. Has she recalled them word for word? Are they noted in diaries? There is no mention of such. I assume they are improvised. What is interesting to note is that the autobiography reads almost as a collection of stories. This isn’t surprising given that she was a folklorist and that she loved the songs of her people!

Chapters cover her personal beliefs - on religion, on the value of friends, on hoodoo, on dance, on books, on race pride, race consciousness and race prejudice and most importantly on individualism. One should never clump people into groups, not ever!

The book ends and then a long section is filled with what seems like add-ons. The chronology spoken of above, as well as appendixes, very lengthy acknowledgements and her involvement with a dance production. The appendixes summarize much of what was indicated earlier in the book, clarifying if you happened not to have understood. It is just that I had understood and they felt preachy, like a repetitive lecture.

What hits one immediately as you read the book is that the writing style is unusual. I found it unique in two ways. Nothing is said without a story. This became occasionally excessive. Secondly, metaphors and similes abound, but at times this felt simply wordy and repetitive. Other times what the author was saying was unclear due to the use of idioms and black nomenclature of which I am unfamiliar.

The audiobook is narrated by Bahni Turpin. She sings, she changes inflections for different characters, she recreates revivalist meetings…….. or shall we just say she dramatizes for all that she is worth. Many will like this. It is not badly performed. If what you are looking for is a performance, you will be happy. I prefer a simple reading of the text.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting and I love the way this is written!

[Raul · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and a sword in my hands.”

This audiobook performed by Bahni Turpin was great. Zora is a fantastic storyteller, the kind that grips your attention from the first word to the last and it was a wonderful to be immersed in her words as Turpin narrated of her life, from her beginnings as a precocious child in Eatonville, Florida to her work towards funding her way to school and the adventures she had in the process, to then school and later her work as an anthropologist and researcher, and as an artist and novelist.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dust Tracks On a Road, Zora Neale Hurston’s autobiography, was published in 1942. This verbose but colorful book reads like a collection of short stories. Hurston often poses questions that she proceeds to answer but not without excluding the reader from her thought process. Sometimes by the end of the chapter the questions are still unanswered. But for Hurston it seems just thinking through it was enough. And so goes her autobiography.

Hurston always had a fanciful way about herself. We find out early in the book that she was a storyteller from the beginning. A significant portion of the book is dedicated to stories that she recalls from her childhood. While Hurston’s mother was always supportive of her anecdotes, her grandmother found them troubling. I laughed when I read Hurston’s account of what happened when she was telling her mother a story within earshot of her grandmother, “Oh, she’s just playing,” Mama said indulgently. Her grandmother replied,“Playing! Why dat lil’ heifer is lying just as fast as a horse can trot. Stop her!”

Hurston’s mother died when Hurston was a teen and her father remarried. She found her stepmother impossible to get along with. They had physical altercations with Hurston admitting at one point that she wanted to kill the woman. After six years, Hurston had had enough. This discontentment is was caused her to venture out into the world. Things serendipitously fall into place for her time after time once she sets out on her own. She even writes, “From the depth of my inner heart I appreciated the fact that the world had not been altogether unkind to Mama’s child.”

Filled with quotable material, Dust Tracks On a Road is less about the chronology of Hurston’s life and more about how she makes sense of the cards life has dealt.

[Suzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, I loved Zora's story of her life . . . at least up to 1942 when she wrote this at age 51. I particularly loved the story of her childhood in Eatonville when she was a high-spirited girl, one of eight children, who tried the patience of her preacher father, but who was completely supported by her mother. Growing up in Eatonville, the first all-black incorporated community in the U.S., but just across the lake from Maitland, an all-white town, set Hurston's view of the world at a young age.



Unfortunately, she lost her mother when she was nine after which she felt at sea and lost a little of her zest for life as she was passed around to relatives. But that fire inside of her wasn't dimmed for long as she kept plugging away at getting an education and finding her true purpose. While reading I kept thinking of the gospel song lyrics He picked me up, he turned me around and placed my feet on solid ground and He made a way out of no way. In Zora's case these would read that she picked herself up and turned herself around, and she made a way out of no way. She grew up in the church but was an explorer of many religions and spiritual traditions, so I'm sure she would appreciate my tweak of the lyrics.

And did I mention the writing? Written in southern Negro vernacular with energy and zest to match her own, I couldn't turn the pages fast enough to find out "what next?". And what a life! She was destined to do many great things; she believed in herself and convinced others to sponsor her in her academic, anthropological, writing and publishing endeavors. Some of her pursuits put her in danger, but again she made a way out of no way.

With all that said, I felt that her storytelling sometimes got in the way of really getting to know her. In Eatonville, there was the porch at Joe Clark's store where the men hung out and told stories or "lies" as they were called and where Zora listened in as often as she could. I don't feel Hurston was lying, but I do question the veracity of some of what she is telling us, and I feel she left out a lot, especially about her affairs and three marriages. I'm sure her autobiography was founded on truth but fashioned as she wanted her readers to see her. (In that way, this reminded me of Beryl Markham's autobiography West with the Night.) Her philosophy was that we're all individuals and her question was always "can't we just get along?". But I also imagine she had many difficult experiences with the racism of her time, whether in the south or the north, and I know that even with her fame as part of the Harlem Renaissance, she struggled with many periods of poverty, neglected by her sponsors and publishers. I felt so tender towards her with all her struggles, but glad this larger-than-life personality graced us with her presence and her works.

Why I'm reading this: I've wanted to read more Hurston after watching the outstanding PBS show on her, Claiming a Space, this past January. I was going to put the book on hold at the library when I looked at my bookshelves and spied this book which I bought back when it came out! Buddy read with friend Diane.

[Jerrika Rhone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zora just gave me life #yesssssssssssssssssss

65% Done: Writing on paper, that Booker T Washington was trash makes Zora the dopest of the dope. Fight me.

[Bethany (Beautifully Bookish Bethany) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

This was surprisingly entertaining! Hurston is genuinely funny and is a fantastic storyteller. She also seems like quite the character, from childhood on. Dust Tracks on a Road is her autobiography and it's well worth a read. My only real critique is that once we get into her adult years, she switches from a largely chronological personal narrative to themed chapters that may be out of order and sometimes get a bit away from her in terms of discussing things like, the politics of the Bahamas in the 1930's. It's still fairly interesting, but is less cohesive as a narrative whole. That said, this was generally a delightful book with a strong narrative voice and interesting ideas.

[booklady · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent writing over all, published in 1942 at the height of Zora Neale Hurston’s popularity. The author lived another 18 years, died, was buried in an unmarked grave and remained largely ignored until novelist, Alice Walker, looked into her and her work with a view to having Hurston recognized by new generations.

The title probably refers to Hurston’s tumbleweed existence from her youth onward. Her mother died when she was 14. Her father’s unfortunate remarriage alienated not only his children but also his entire Baptist congregation. She seems to have never looked back.

During her travels, Zora found work where she could, but going to school was always her dream and eventually she realized it. She graduated from Howard University, in her words, ‘It is to the Negro what Harvard is to the whites.’ Later she got a scholarship to Barnard and graduated from there in 1928. Then she was on the road again doing research, which she called formalized curiosity, poking and prying with a purpose.

There is one brief description of her participation in a ceremony where she to ‘meet the Devil and make a compact’. She said it took her months to doubt it afterwards. I debated not finishing the book at this point, but decided to see if she had any further observations or consequences from this bit of ‘research’. The chapter ended with a dismissive comment attributing science as the power behind Voodoo. For her sake, I pray the enemy looked at things that way as well. There was an entire chapter devoted to Religion which was certainly unique, but also confirming. For example, she says prayer is, ‘folly ... the highest form of sacrilege,’ because it is attempting to read the mind of God and get Him to change it. While certainly a pragmatic perspective, if thought completely true—at least to me—is utterly depressing. All that makes Christianity beautiful and desirable is having an accessible, responsive Heavenly Father who listens to us and answers ALL our prayers, perhaps not as we anticipate or intend, yet often in ways better than we can imagine.

The best chapter is twelve, My People, My People. Here Hurston writes as anthropologist about her fellow blacks of the early 20th Century. She concludes, ‘Still, if you have received no clear cut impression of what the Negro in America is like, then you are in the same place with me. There is no The Negro here. Our lives are so diversified, internal attitudes so varied, appearances and capabilities so different that there is no possible classification so catholic that it will cover us all, except My people! My People!’ She clearly loves ‘her People’, almost in a maternal sense.

Most chapters 3 or 4, one chapter 5, two chapters 1 or 2, for an overall book rating of 3. Sadly, I do not believe I will be reading any more Hurston. Too bad. She is very talented.

[Zanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

I feel like Zora was a brilliant, indomitable woman who would have scared me out of my skin if I knew her. I love Henry Louis Gates Jnr's afterword to the edition I read, which discusses the search for a voice in Hurston's work and contemporary black women writers related search for literary ancestors, of whom Zora may be claimed as one...

I like her style when it remains concrete; when she strays into abstractions, I start getting bored. I was bewildered by the complex mixture of attitudes to race she presents. Some of the racist joking around was quite hard to read; while reading on public transport I kept looking around to check nobody who might get hurt by it was in glancing distance of the page. Much energy is spent shrugging off race, suppressing it, even ridiculing concepts of race consciousness and racial solidarity. I can see how this might have seemed a way forward at the time, but the way race keeps coming up even as it's denied, in the text and its contemporary reviews, speaks of the currency it would retain. Nontheless, Hurston's love and enthusiasm for the musical and dance arts of black people in the USA and the Caribbean and of their storytelling is genuine and she brings them to life here along with many vivid characters, among whom she is the blazing star...

[Jaylia3 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zora Neale Hurston approaches this moving memoir like a master storyteller, with wonderfully lyrical prose that reminded me a lot of her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Loved it.

[Dusty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read somewhere a quote from Alice Walker that Zora Neale Hurston has a tendency to be exasperating. I think applied to Dust Tracks on a Road that may be putting the matter lightly.

Allegedly, the book is a memoir. Hurston is coy about this at its start; she says that after the success of her previous books her publisher asked her -- nearly had to force her -- to put onto paper the narrative of her own life. I would say what we ended up with is rather more the narrative of the life Hurston would've liked to have had: People who've investigated her biography have revealed that she was born ten years earlier than she claimed and that she almost certainly was not born in Eatonville, Florida, the first all-black American municipality in which she obviously takes so much pride. It's true that every autobiography is a sort of self-fashioning and requires us to read between the lines. But Hurston's autobiography pushes our suspension of disbelief to its limits, while she herself writes about all the liars she's encountered over the course of her research and travels. Anyway, like Walker said: Exasperating.

That said, however, the story is quite a romp. The youthful events Hurston describes may or may not have actually happened, but either way they're deliciously written and run the gamut from the poignant to the hilarious. The later chapters, which turn from recounting the past to reflecting on contemporary social issues, particularly the present and future of the so-called "Race question," keep the coy and joyful tone intact. I defy you to find a more energetic criticism of ethnic nationalism than "Seeing the World as It Is," one of the chapters/essays at the end of the book. I've seen other critics remark that the book's chapters don't gel, and while it's true that Dust Tracks is more a collection of essays than a novel or memoir, I wouldn't say that makes the book any less entertaining. After all, what keeps you reading isn't so much the suspense of what's to happen as the force of Hurston's personality. And what a personality!

A must-read for anybody interested in Hurston. Recommended for anybody else. Four stars.

[Lulu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a serious girl crush on Zora Neale Hurston! Her personality was a thing of beauty. I think I smiled 90% of the time while reading this book!! I wish I could have met her, gone to a book signing or something, but she left me with some hope at the end of this book.

“Maybe all of us who do not have the good fortune to meet, or meet again, in this world, will meet at a barbecue.”

[Britt · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is there to say that hasn't already been said? She was a visionary. She is still relevant. Her work is still changing lives.

[Chris Chapman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am fascinated by Hurston's extraordinary up-and-down life - towards the end of it she worked as a maid, while still publishing stories and newspaper articles. The woman was simply a force of nature - to illustrate this, Their Eyes Were Watching God, a work of great beauty, was written in seven weeks in Haiti, while she was doing anthropological field work there. Unfortunately this memoir was a little underwhelming. What a hodge-podge! Some of it does class as autobiography, in that she tells the story of her life. But then she seems to have seized the opportunity to mend fences with people she had misunderstandings with, salute a long list of friends, hold forth on various subjects in rambling fashion, and settle accounts with people who wronged her (OK the story of her whipping the ass of her stepmother who apparently manoevred her father into excommunicating all of his children - Hurston herself received a message while at boarding school, suggesting that maybe the school would adopt her - is pretty amusing). Don't bother with the appendix, it contains some of the worst of these ramblings, and even repeats three stories she told in the main text.

Having said that, we do learn the extraordinary story of how she got an education against all odds, and turned herself into a novelist and anthropologist, whilst almost as a sideline introducing the American public to hitherto unappreciated forms of Caribbean dance. It was written before her career took a downturn. She was buried in an unmarked grave and it wasn't until 14 years later that Alice Walker tracked it down, wrote about her and sparked a ZNH revival.

[Nichole · Rating 4 out of 5]

I cannot praise this book enough. It's been years since I read anything written by Zora Neale Hurston, and I find myself once again amazed by the hugeness of her life. What lyricism and spunk! She was a vital woman and writer who truly lived in her time.

Like many others, I liked her accounts of her childhood and teen years the best. I am aware of why this book had stirred up so much controversy even among her most loyal readers, but I hope I am a little more understanding than her critics. Life can be rough and unfair, and no one is flawless. No one will ever be entirely honest because we are too human. The "straight path" in life will never exist. But, we each have the ability to move past ugliness, help one another, and live our best. This autobiography is a book of lessons, not necessarily a linear account of Zora Neale Hurston's life. Dust Tracks on a Road is the memoir of a survivor and lover of life.

[El · Rating 4 out of 5]

(I read this book as part of a reading project I have undertaken with some other nerdy friends in which we read The Novel: A Biography and some of the other texts referenced by Schmidt.)

I recently re-read Their Eyes Were Watching God and didn't love it as much as most other readers. I read this soon thereafter, and I have to say I found it to be a much more interesting read. I understand that it was not received well critically; even her number-one-fan, Alice Walker, apparently didn't care much for this book. But I found it authentic in a way that I felt was lacking a smidge in Their Eyes. Obviously this book is an autobiography, and Their Eyes was not. But even so, I feel most fiction tends to have quite a few autobiographical moments whether it was the author's intent or not.

Anyone interested in Hurston at all should read this book. She writes quite a bit about her childhood which is charming in just how imaginative she was. At times her anecdotes would get a bit too long-winded which then detracted some of the original charm, but overall I found reading her memories an interesting insight into the mind of a quality writer. Hurston was undoubtedly an intelligent woman, even before she went on in her education to become an anthropologist. Her life, not surprisingly, was not always easy, and she doesn't shy away from talking about the more difficult part of her growth - from the death of her mother to fighting with her stepmother to going to Baltimore to live with her brother to having to go off on her own to care for other people. She was open about her experiences which I appreciated, though, again, she did sometimes take stories on a little further than I felt was necessary, so there is some repetition.

Overall, though, this is a great read and makes me want to read even more of her writing. I still have The Complete Stories on my stacks at home, and I will be tackling that soon. I thought it might be interesting to read the book she was best known for (Their Eyes), followed by her autobiography, then followed with her short stories. I feel I'm getting a well-rounded Hurston reading experience.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This autobiography is a collection of memories and short stories. Zora Neal Hurston uses her life as a backdrop to let a loose plot unfold. Her talent as a storyteller shines through and is the star of the book. She paints vivid pictures, and the pace is just right. Hurston tells us what she wants us to hear and leaves out quite a bit, but I didn’t really want more. She told me the one thing I wanted to know which was what was going on in her mind when she wrote Her Eyes Were Watching God. In my opinion, that book is a Harlem Renaissance masterpiece. If I was left wanting anything, it was more about her process in writing it.

I’m going to let everyone else debate about Hurston’s politics, plagiarism or whatever. This book is intriguing, interesting and entertaining. I'm going with 5 stars all the way.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

for now (since I've got a stack of books to post about):

Let's just say I enjoyed this book (and the author) so much that I just bought two more of her novels, Jonah's Gourd Vine and Moses, Man of the Mountain, a biography (which I got today -- Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston), and preordered Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance by this author, which comes out in January.

I love her writing style, but as I said, more later. I can highly recommend it, though, for sure.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

You have to love Zora Neale Hurston’s narrative voice, which holds true, even in this her autobiography. It’s just so easy and friendly. There is so much to love in this memoir. The last two chapters, added as an update, are intelligent and thoughtful, but don’t fit well here.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting, beautifully written, somewhat meandering autobiography.

If you’re looking for the story of the author’s life, you’ll only find a bit of it, not just because she wrote it long before she died but because she doesn’t really give us a very coherent account of the events of her life. We get lots of information about her childhood, early days and the somewhat violent and bloody-minded society she grew up in but we don’t get much information about her literary career. She mentions many of the things she did along with their trips to gather folklore but it’s not constructed in any kind of linear way.

She seems determined to be very even-handed in a depiction of good and bad people both black and white. Her grandmother was horrible. How a man who behaved like her father could be a preacher in any religion is beyond me.

Her vocation as a folklorist, and anthropologist infiltrates the writing on many levels. This is the first autobiography I ever read that seems to incorporate magical realism.

The latter part of the book is filled with long discussions of her views on a variety of subjects including race, love, politics, friendship and California vs Florida. We get little snippets and anecdotes from her life along the way. There’s some weird stuff here. I guess you’ll have to decide whether or not you believe that she really did, as a child, have prophetic dreams and visions that gave her a preview of her future. Personally, it makes me wonder just how reliable a narrator she really is. Far from objective, I suppose.

She goes on long rants about a variety of subjects and I had a difficult time putting my finger on exactly what she believes. She definitely didn’t want to be a crusader against racism. She just wanted to get on with her life. I find that I am very sympathetic toward her views on race. Race is an outmoded concept, a social construction rather than a biological reality, and it deserves to die. There is only one race that matters, the human race which comes in many shades from very pale to almost black. Hurston believed that the color of your skin counted for nothing, which was amazing and wonderful considering the times she lived in

I wonder how trying to ignore Jim Crow and the other manifestations of the racist society she had to live in worked out for her in the end. I understand she didn’t die under the most pleasant circumstances. That makes me sad because she was very talented and deserves far more recognition during her lifetime that she got.

In any case, don’t read this if you’re looking for a coherent account of her life. Read this for the gorgeous writing. If you go into it with that idea, you won’t be disappointed.

[Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is very much situated in Hurston’s internal life which is vivid and magical. It is definitely a writer’s story. We get a distinct picture of the genesis of Hurston as a writer from a young child playing mostly by herself and inventing stories to an introverted youth who spent as much time as possible with her face in a book to an anthropologist who traveled to the American South and to the West Indies collecting the stories of others. Hurston is first and foremost a story teller but one driven by lush descriptions and imaginary narratives. Most of the action in this book is all in Hurston’s head. She was someone who truly lived the life of the mind.
Much of the book leaves you feeling as if she had no real intimacy with anyone besides herself. This couldn’t possibly be the case but her personal relationships remain mostly private. Towards the end of the book, we get a quick peak at Hurston the lover in an eleven paged chapter entitled Love. Despite the cursory nature of this section, Hurston does make eloquent and beautiful observations, but she keeps most things to herself. She writes: “What I do know, I have no intention of putting but so much in the public ears.”
As a whole I really enjoyed this book but I feel, like all texts, it must be viewed in the context in which it was written- I don’t doubt Hurston’s commitment to individuality or her understanding of race markers as socially constructed but the highlighting of all the white people who helped her along the way seems bizarrely self-conscious as Maya Angelou has noted. I have to wonder if these parts were emphasized in order to mollify a white audience.
Not surprisingly- there are no thoughts on reparations here, a point Hurston emphasizes several times throughout the book and again in the appendix. She is so firmly couched in individualism that she commits herself to the causes of no group even as she eloquently details the hypocrisy of foreign policy in Seeing the World As It Is.
My People! My People! seems to contradict her passionate belief in individualism as she ends with several generalizations on black folks- many of which made me cringe. What could have been an indictment of essentialism instead reinforces stereotypes. I could have definitely skipped this essay and been happy but the insightful and prescient nature of Seeing the World As It Is and Religion more than make up for the rest of the appendix. Religion made all the hairs stand up on my neck as it describes so precisely what is continuing to happen today with our current political climate. It would have made an excellent addition to Jesus Camp for sure.

[Jeni Pearson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was beyond my expectations. The visualization of the characters influences, were exceptional! Overall, I loved how she found herself...LOVING ME!!