Two Visits To Dorothy West's Past

After a long hiatus, the last surviving writer from the Harlem Renaissance, Dorothy West, has published two new books at the age of 87: "The Wedding," an acclaimed bestseller released in January, and now, a book of miscellaneous fiction and nonfiction, "The Richer, the Poorer."

The Harlem Renaissance, that flowering of creativity by African-American writers, artists and musicians in the 1920s and '30s, opened literary and social doors to many middle-class writers of color. Though she was born into a world of upper-class black Bostonians, Dorothy West was not light-skinned like fellow writers Jean Toomer and Nella Larsen, and she retained an empathic connection with those of her race who were of humbler - and darker - origins.

In fact, "The Wedding" (Doubleday, $20) might be considered West's criticism of her community's fixation on skin color as the main criterion of marriage. Since education and social standing often proved concomitants of race to the Boston blacks who kept summer homes on Martha's Vineyard, the future of that "race" appeared to lie in the lightness of a child's skin.

Color is everything

In this closed-off world in which the Coles family prepares for the marriage of their pale-skinned daughter to a white musician, blood is spoken of as "black" or "white," and blood proportions determine character. The black Luther McNeil, for example, is stereotyped as excessively sexual and with one aim in life: to seduce Shelby Coles and thereby give his three daughters a "white" mother.

Though political in its message, "The Wedding" reads like an African-American novel of manners. "The flower of the South had rotted in the slime of slavery," she writes of the bygone Southern way of life, "the root no substance to the stalk, and the stalk suddenly obscenely ejaculating until it lay limp and self-abused in a burial of petals."

In "The Richer, the Poorer: Stories, Sketches and Reminiscences" (Doubleday, $22), West presents emotionally resonant tales that, with moments of epiphany and psychological complexity, compare favorably with some of the best that 20th-century Modernism has produced.

In "The Envelope," a long-married man reading the initials on a black-edged envelope assumes it a letter from a former girlfriend notifying him that her husband has died - and that she is once again available. This encourages him to look more critically at his wife and, under the influence of revived memories of an earlier, youthful love, to insult her.

When he opens the envelope later and discovers that his ex-girlfriend, not her husband, is the deceased party, he returns to his wife's laden dinner table seeking reassurance that she does not think him too fat.

Looks at women, children

If male egos are portrayed in some stories as fragile, West shows in others that her perceptive eye cuts to the heart of women, too. In "The Roomer," a woman surreptitiously pockets a monthly two dollars from her boarder's rent in order to buy luxury items for herself and make her husband feel inferior for his inability to provide.

West's talent at capturing the essence of relationships extends also to children. Her own privileged childhood on Martha's Vineyard, in fact, is the focus of the reminiscence section of the book - together with accounts of fellow Harlem Renaissance writer Wallace Thurman, and her visit to Moscow with Langston Hughes.

Unfortunately, collecting these along with additional unpolished sketches gives the impression of bits and pieces salvaged simply for launching another book on the coattails of "The Wedding." A book of stories, followed by a separate text about West's life and times, would have been preferable. However, gratitude for these lyric and personal testaments to a time past is my overriding sentiment.

Seattle writer Sandra Chait teaches South African literature at the University of Washington.