Author: Victoria Christopher Murray

Publisher: Berkley

ISBN: 9780593638484

(Editorial note: I used the word "Negro" in this review, because that was the word the author used all throughout her book and how Black people referred to themselves in the early 20th century. In no way, shape, or form do I condone using words in a derogatory or offensive manner. However, I do think it's important to use them correctly within historical context, which is why I've used it in my review. If I was speaking to a Black person or about Black writers, artists, or Black people in general in current times, I would use the term "Black" or "African-American.")

A young woman moves to New York for a new job and to make her writing dreams come true. What begins as a simple job turns into a major turning point in a movement that will eventually give the country some of its most important writers. 

Author Victoria Christopher Murray introduces readers to a crucial historical figure in our nation’s development of key authors in a book that feels more like a textbook at times in the novel Harlem Rhapsody.

It's 1919, and Jessie Redmon Fauset gets off the train in New York City from Philadelphia with her mother and a trunk full of dreams in tow. She’s here at the behest of Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the forerunners of civil rights for Black people in the 20th century. 

Will, as she calls him, has created the position of literary editor for Jessie at The Crisis, the magazine he founded that has quickly become a megaphone for Negro voices in their time. She’s also in New York because she and Will are in love, despite his status as a married man and her determination never to become attached to anyone in that way.

Yet she is attached. When Jessie isn’t taking in the sights and sounds of her new home in Harlem, she’s working on The Crisis and spending all of her time, work and personal, with Will. Jessie’s mother doesn’t approve at all. 

She warns Jessie time and again that remaining so strongly tied to a married man can only bring heartache for Jessie eventually, and in her head Jessie knows her mother is right. Her heart, however, has its own resolve and won’t let Will go. 

It doesn’t help that Will seeks her out in their free time for stolen nights together.

Even with the strong draw of Will, though, soon enough Jessie starts to find her feet in Harlem and her new job all on her own. She’s eager to nurture and guide new writers as she helps them prepare for publication in The Crisis. 

The magazine has a strong subscription base, and Jessie is determined to further solidify the publication’s hold. Racism, while less pronounced in New York, is still rampant everywhere. 

The Crisis acts as a voice for so many across the country who feel like theirs has been stolen from them because of the color of their skin.

Along with acting as editor, Jessie has dreams of releasing her own novel. She spends her time trying to balance her writing time, networking with other publishers, discovering new writers, and her affair with 

Will in a whirlwind life. It isn’t until she finally achieves her dream that she understands she hasn’t just been guiding new writers on their way to lifelong success; she’s been ushering in a movement.

Author Victoria Christopher Murray tells the story of a little-known figure who discovered some of the most critically-acclaimed Black authors of all time: Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen, among others. 

The story of Jessie Redmon Fauset, like so many other women in history, has receded to the background of more prominent figures, like W.E.B. Du Bois. Yet as Murray proves, people like Jessie need to be highlighted, celebrated, and remembered. In that regard, the book deserves high praise.

However, the novel at times reads less like “historical fiction” and more like a history textbook. Murray’s eagerness to share Jessie Redmon Fauset’s accomplishments gives all of them equal importance, which makes the book proceed on a lateral line rather than building to a clear climax. 

Without anything other than Jessie’s affair with Du Bois and the occasional conflicts between them, the book loses cohesion at times.

As the author explains in her note in the back of the book, she intentionally devotes a great deal of time and story real estate to the affair Jessie had with W.E.B. Du Bois. 

The relationship drew the ire of many of their contemporaries, and the reported treatment Du Bois gave Fauset will surprise and even disappoint some readers. 

The man responsible for so many major civil rights actions, including the founding of the NAACP, was, in the author’s words, “misogynistic and elitist,” and she writes him in many scenes through that lens.

The writing aside, readers will appreciate learning more about this woman who stood her ground and chose to chart her own path in a time when women were actively encouraged to focus on hearth and home. 

Those who enjoy learning about less well-known figures in history will want to check this out. I recommend readers Bookmark Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray.