Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray

 

Publisher: Berkley

On Sale Date: February 4, 2025

Pages: 400

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

Harlem Rhapsody is a story that takes place in 1919 and 1920. Harlem is the place where Black pride is everywhere in music literature, theatre, fashion and the arts, while in the rest of the country, a lot of civil and racial unrest takes place.

The Crisis is a magazine founded by W.E.B (Will) du Bois, who is also the editor. Jessie Redmon Fauset, the main character in this book has recently moved to Harlem with her mother, and she becomes the editor of The Crisis. Her task at the magazine is discovering young black writers whose writing will change the world .She discovers many new black writers; sixteen-year-old Countee Cullen, seventeen-year-old Langston Hughes, and Nella Larsen, who becomes one of her best friends.The magazine thrives under Jessie's leadership, the number of subscriptions rises quick and every black aspiring writer wants their work published in the groundbreaking magazine.

But her work at the magazine also has a darker side; she has a an affair with Will, while he is married an has a daughter and is fourteen years older then Jessie. Jessie's mom finds out, leaves and moves back home. From one of her friends she gained over the years working at the magazine, rumors come that Will is also seeing other women besides Jessie. Their affair is chaotic and has many ups and downs, and it influences Jessie's work at the magazine more and more, as she sees Will almost everyday. And she has a goal, to one day become the editor in chief of the magazine, which is Will's position at the magazine. When her relationship with Will becomes troubled, she has to choose between her position at the magazine, going on with her relationship with Will, or to study at the Sorbonne University in Paris and choose for herself.

This is a book I have mixed feelings about. Most of all, I found this story lacked depth, and the characters stayed very one-dimensional, and the storyline, which also lacked an interesting development or events that keep you interested as a reader, evolved mostly around the secret relationship between Jessie and Will, which made the more interesting topics that the book has, the era of racial and civil unrest it was set in, fall to the background. And to stay interested in the characters, what was happening in the book was just not interesting and the storyline felt quite thin. You truly starts wondering as a reader why Jessie is starting an affair with a married and very egoistic man like Will, which truly conflicted with her work for The Crisis, and I truly expected Jessie to be smarter than to start an affair. What else was missing was any interesting plot twist or turns, in this story there where not any of them, and that's a true pity. It would have been a nicer book if the author decided that Jessie made a few wiser decisions earlier in the story, and stood more up for herself instead of falling for a doomed affair.

I truly expected more of this book, and do not really recommend reading it.