{"id":46857,"date":"2020-06-03T11:12:44","date_gmt":"2020-06-03T15:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=46857"},"modified":"2020-05-31T17:44:44","modified_gmt":"2020-05-31T21:44:44","slug":"hitting-a-straight-lick-with-a-crooked-stick-stories-from-the-harlem-renaissance-by-zora-neale-hurston-edited-by-genevieve-west-in-booklist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/hitting-a-straight-lick-with-a-crooked-stick-stories-from-the-harlem-renaissance-by-zora-neale-hurston-edited-by-genevieve-west-in-booklist\/","title":{"rendered":"Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance by Zora Neale Hurston, edited by Genevieve West [in Booklist]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-46652\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2020\/04\/Hitting-a-Straight-Lick-with-a-Crooked-Stick-Zora-Neale-Hurston-BookDragon-530x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"530\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2020\/04\/Hitting-a-Straight-Lick-with-a-Crooked-Stick-Zora-Neale-Hurston-BookDragon-530x800.jpg 530w, https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2020\/04\/Hitting-a-Straight-Lick-with-a-Crooked-Stick-Zora-Neale-Hurston-BookDragon.jpg 608w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 530px) 100vw, 530px\" \/><strong>*STARRED REVIEW<\/strong><br \/>\nArmed with significant acting credits and plentiful lauds, Aunjanue Ellis makes her audiobook debut as the voice of one of the 20th-century\u2019s most celebrated, iconic writers. In a word, her performance is <em>stupendous<\/em>. Texas Woman\u2019s University professor Genevieve West\u2019s definitive new collection features, for the first time, Zora Neale Hurston\u2019s entire oeuvre of short fiction in a single volume, including eight \u201c\u2018lost\u2019 Harlem Renaissance tales.\u201d West\u2019s must-read introduction reveals how their recovery \u201cprovides a much-needed correction to Hurston\u2019s legacy,\u201d expanding her \u201crural\u201d focus into \u201cnorthern cities and the Great Migration.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For the uninitiated, reading on the page could be challenging as Hurston freely shifts between regional and African American vernacular dialects, especially in writing dialog, and then back and forth to standard English. Where print readers might phonetically stumble \u2013 for example, \u201c\u2018Case you allus tries tuh know mo\u2019 than me, but Ah aint so ign\u2019rant\u2019\u201d \u2013 Ellis is an effortlessly fluent cipher, comfortable and confident throughout. She\u2019s a father aching for his son\u2019s freedom, a desperate young man trying to right his mistakes, two young siblings plotting to shave their sleeping grandmother\u2019s hairy chin, a no-longer young woman regretting her amorous decisions, a long-suffering wife reclaiming her agency, and many more. Seamlessly affecting accents, race, gender, age, and<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>backgrounds on every page, Ellis proves herself an ideal guide through Hurston\u2019s rediscovered, beckoning world.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Review<\/strong>: modified from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.booklistonline.com\/Hitting-a-Straight-Lick-with-a-Crooked-Stick-Stories-from-the-Harlem-Renaissance-\/pid=9731485\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">&#8220;Media,&#8221; <em>Booklist<\/em>, May 15, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2020<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>*STARRED REVIEW Armed with significant acting credits and plentiful lauds, Aunjanue Ellis makes her audiobook debut as the voice of one of the 20th-century\u2019s most celebrated, iconic writers. In a word, her performance is stupendous. Texas Woman\u2019s University professor Genevieve West\u2019s definitive new collection features,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,81,142,6,7],"tags":[89,9086,6608,6668,59,10,11,149,68,24,9085,51,8121],"class_list":["post-46857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-audio","category-black-african-american","category-fiction","category-short-stories","tag-anthology-collection","tag-aunjanue-ellis","tag-bookdragon","tag-booklist","tag-cultural-exploration","tag-family","tag-friendship","tag-gender-inequality","tag-haves-vs-have-nots","tag-historical","tag-hitting-a-straight-lick-with-a-crooked-stick","tag-identity","tag-zora-neale-hurston"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance by Zora Neale Hurston, edited by Genevieve West [in Booklist] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/hitting-a-straight-lick-with-a-crooked-stick-stories-from-the-harlem-renaissance-by-zora-neale-hurston-edited-by-genevieve-west-in-booklist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance by Zora Neale Hurston, edited by Genevieve West [in Booklist] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"*STARRED REVIEW Armed with significant acting credits and plentiful lauds, Aunjanue Ellis makes her audiobook debut as the voice of one of the 20th-century\u2019s most celebrated, iconic writers. 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