Zinzi Clemmons Reads Between the Lines of Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes's Friendship

The New York Times's Book Review section features Zinzi Clemmons's review of a new, nuanced portrait of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston's friendship, and its unraveling: Zora and Langston: A Story of Friendship and Betrayal (by Yuval Taylor). Clemmons asserts that the book is "an overdue study of the famous yet underdiscussed friendship and literary collaboration between Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes." From there: 

“It is so easy to see how and why they would love each other,” the epigraph, taken from a 1989 essay by Alice Walker, reads. “Each was to the other an affirming example of what black people could be like: wild, crazy, creative, spontaneous, at ease with who they are, and funny. A lot of attention has been given to their breakup … but very little to the pleasure Zora and Langston must have felt in each other’s company.”

That final line encapsulates Taylor’s ambitious project. The dramatic fallout between Hurston and Hughes, triggered by their collaboration on the ill-fated and controversial play “Mule Bone,” has been fetishized in literary circles for its dramatic nature. Stories of their heated fights, rumors of a love triangle involving their typist, Louise Thompson, and the involvement of lawyers have all made the rounds. Consequently, the qualities that initially drew these artists together — their shared sense of mission and pride in ordinary black people — have long been overlooked. “Zora and Langston” refocuses our attention on the positive aspects of their relationship, while doing its best to explain — through historical records and firsthand research — what really brought their friendship to an end.

Read on at the New York Times.