Research Catalog

Title

Jonah's gourd vine : a novel / Zora Neale Hurston ; with a foreword by Rita Dove and an afterword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Author

Hurston, Zora Neale

Publication

New York, N.Y. : HarperPerennial, 2008.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

• Dove, Rita
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr.

Description

xv, 229, 40 p.; 21 cm.

Summary

Jonah's Gourd Vine, Zora Neale Hurston's first novel, originally published in 1934, tells the story of John Buddy Pearson, "a living exultation" of a young man who loves too many women for his own good. Lucy, his long-suffering wife, is his true love, but there's also Mehaley and Big 'Oman, as well as the scheming Hattie, who conjures hoodoo spells to ensure his attentions. Even after becoming the popular pastor of Zion Hope, where his sermons and prayers for cleansing rouse the congregation's fervor, John has to confess that though he is a preacher on Sundays, he is a "natchel man" the rest of the week. And so in this sympathetic portrait of a man and his community, Zora Neale Hurston shows that faith, tolerance, and good intentions cannot resolve the tension between the spiritual and the physical. That she makes this age-old dilemma come so alive is a tribute to her understanding of the vagaries of human nature.

Series Statement

Harper Perennial modern classics

Uniform Title

Harper Perennial modern classics

Subject

African Americans > Fiction

Genre/Form

• Fictional Work
• Fiction
• Romans.

Note

• Originally published: New York, N.Y. : Perennial Library, 1990.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 219-222).

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

ISBN

• 9780061350191
• 0061350192

OCLC

• 213333053
• SCSB-11903007

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library