by T. R. Simon
For me, it was an awakening to who I was, to who we were, and a new understanding of where we came from and what we, as a people, had endured. As I realized how close to slavery we still were, Eatonville meant more to me than ever. And I marveled all the more at Joe Clarke and the men and women of Eatonville, at their courage and vision in creating a town so dedicated to our freedom.
When Zora and I finally left Miz Lucia’s bungalow, the storm clouds of the previous two days were blowing gently to the south, revealing a pale moon hanging low against a clear inky sky.
“My daddy’s going to tan our hides clear to Sunday,” Zora said.
“I know,” I said with an unfamiliar calm.
“There’s still something I have to ask you. How come you didn’t tell me you saw a woman by the horse?”
“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. “That day was full of so many confusing things. I just assumed you had seen her, too. Then I thought maybe I had imagined her, that maybe I had scared myself into seeing a ghost.”
“What do you think now?”
“Now I think I must have been seeing a memory so powerful it could come alive for a moment.”
“So how come we both saw the horse, but only you saw the woman?”
“I — I didn’t see the horse. I just saw the woman. You saw the horse, but not the woman.”
Zora stopped walking and turned to look at me. “We each saw a different piece of the same memory,” she breathed. “Here we are, thinking we’re each living our own lives, but maybe we’re all just pieces of a bigger puzzle. Maybe we’re part of some other people’s memory right now, creating the story of people we haven’t even met.”
I smiled. Zora’s mind was already busy turning the last two days into a story, one that would become richer and richer with each telling — our history in beautiful, polished words.
We walked on, our bare feet leaving small dusty prints in the sandy Florida dirt. The storm having passed over us, those tracks would just as surely be there in the morning as we would be off somewhere else, living the next bit of our lives. However much we were each other’s future, we were irrevocably one another’s past.
To hear Zora Neale Hurston tell it, she was born in Eatonville, Florida, the daughter of a mayor, in 1901, or 1903, or 1910. Even from a young age, Hurston was an inventor of stories, a creator of masks and disguises. In reality, she was born in 1891 in Notasulga, Alabama, the fifth of eight children raised by John and Lucy Hurston. Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father, born into slavery, a carpenter and preacher (who did eventually become the mayor of Eatonville).
Although Alabama was her place of birth, Eatonville, Florida, was the place that truly felt like home to Zora. It was the first incorporated all-black township in the United States, established by twenty-seven African-American men soon after the Emancipation Proclamation. Hurston and her family moved to Eatonville when she was just a toddler, and the thriving community infected her with energy, confidence, and ambition. Hurston’s childhood was idyllic.
But then in 1904, when Hurston was just thirteen, her mother passed away. Thus began what Zora would later call the “haunted years.” Lucy Hurston had been the one to encourage her daughter to have courageous dreams. John Hurston encouraged his daughter, too, but just as often tried to tame her rambunctious spirit, sometimes harshly. After his wife died, John had little energy or money to devote to his children and grew detached from them emotionally. When he remarried, his new wife and Zora were like oil and water.
Zora left home after a vicious fight with the new Mrs. Hurston and struggled to finish high school while working a variety of different jobs. One of those jobs was working as a maid to a singer in a traveling theater troupe, an experience that sparked Hurston’s love of performance, a passion that would last the rest of her life. In 1917, she found herself in Baltimore. She was twenty-six and still without her high-school diploma. So Hurston lied about her age, convincing the school that she was sixteen so that she could re-enroll and complete her education. From that point on, Hurston would always present herself as younger than she actually was.
In 1919, Hurston entered college, first at Howard University and then at Barnard College, where she was the only black student and studied under the famous anthropologist Franz Boas. During these years, her writing began to get recognized. Her first short story, “John Redding Goes to Sea,” was published in Howard University’s literary magazine in 1921.
In the 1920s, Hurston moved to New York City and became an integral part of the Harlem Renaissance, befriending poet Langston Hughes and singer-actress Ethel Waters, among many other cultural luminaries. Zora was the life of the party, frequently hosting artists at her home (though she retreated into her room when she needed to get any writing done).
In 1933, publisher Bertram Lippincott read Hurston’s short story “The Gilded Six-Bits” and inquired as to whether she might be working on a novel. Hurston answered yes — and then set to work writing one, which became Jonah’s Gourd Vine. By 1935, Hurston had her first novel and a collection of southern folktales under her publishing belt.
In 1936, the travel dust that Hurston’s mother thought must have been sprinkled in her shoes allowed her to leave the shores of North America. After applying for and receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship, she traveled to Haiti on the island of Hispaniola and to Jamaica to study indigenous religious practices. In both places, she was a keen observer as well as a full participant in vodoun practices.
In 1937, Hurston’s most renowned novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, was published. In that novel, Hurston’s heroine, Janie Crawford, lives a conventionally circumscribed life until she chooses to break out of the mold and live only for herself. Much like Hurston, Janie has her eyes on the horizon and believes in a better life beyond it. The novel has been praised as a classic of black literature and a tribute to the strength of black women.
Hurston went on to write several other works, including a study of Caribbean voodoo practices, two more novels, and her autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road. All in all, she wrote four novels and more than fifty short stories, plays, and essays. Sadly, Hurston never enjoyed any monetary reward for her success during her lifetime. When she died in 1960 at the age of sixty-nine, her neighbors had to take up a collection for the funeral. Hurston was buried in an unmarked grave in Fort Pierce, Florida, because the neighbors hadn’t been able to raise enough funds for a funeral and a gravestone.
In 1973, a young writer named Alice Walker traveled to Fort Pierce to visit the burial site of the woman who had inspired so many black female authors with her courage and strength: Hurston had insisted on living life on her own terms during a time when most women, and especially black women, had few professional options. “A people do not forget their geniuses,” Walker said, and arranged to have a monument placed, at last, to honor the life and achievements of Zora Neale Hurston.
1891
Born in Notasulga, Alabama, the fifth of eight children, to John Hurston, a carpenter and preacher, and Lucy Potts Hurston, a former schoolteacher.
1894
The Hurston family moves to Eatonville, Florida, a small all-black community.
1897
Hurston’s father is elected mayor of Eatonville.
1904
Lucy Potts Hurston dies.
1917–1918
Attends Morgan Academy in Baltimore, Maryland, and completes high-school requirements.
1918
Works as a waitress at a nightclub and a manicurist at a barbershop that serves only whites.
1919–1924
Attends Howard University and receives an associate degree.
1921
Publishes her first story, “John Redding Goes to Sea,” in Howard University’s literary magazine.
1925–1927
Moves to New York City and attends Barnard College as its only black student. Receives a bachelor of arts degree.
1927
Goes to Florida to colle
ct folktales.
1927
Marries Herbert Sheen.
1930–1932
Organizes the field notes that become Mules and Men.
1930
Works on the play Mule Bone with Langston Hughes.
1931
Breaks with Langston Hughes over the authorship of Mule Bone.
1931
Divorces Sheen.
1934
Publishes Jonah’s Gourd Vine, her first novel.
1935
Mules and Men, a collection of folklore, is published.
1936
Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to study West Indian obeah practices.Travels to Jamaica and Haiti. While in Haiti, she writes Their Eyes Were Watching God in seven weeks.
1937
Their Eyes Were Watching God is published.
1938
Tell My Horse is published.
1939
Receives an honorary doctor of letters degree from Morgan State College.
1939
Marries Albert Price III. They are later divorced.
1939
Moses, Man of the Mountain is published.
1942
Hurston’s autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road, is published.
1947
Goes to British Honduras to research black communities and writes Seraph on the Suwanee.
1948
Seraph on the Suwanee is published.
1956
Works as a librarian at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida.
1958
Works as a substitute teacher at Lincoln Park Academy in Fort Pierce, Florida.
1959
Suffers a stroke and enters the St. Lucie County Welfare Home.
1960
Dies in the St. Lucie County Welfare Home. Buried in an unmarked grave in Fort Pierce.
The Complete Stories (1995)
Published after her death, this collection features Zora Neale Hurston’s short fiction, which was originally published in literary magazines during her lifetime. Spanning Hurston’s writing career from 1921 to 1955, the compilation showcases the writer’s range, rich language, and development as a storyteller.
Dust Tracks on a Road (1942)
Hurston’s autobiography tells the story of her rise from poverty to literary prominence. The writer’s story is told with imagination and exuberance and offers a glimpse into the life of one of America’s most esteemed writers.
Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-Tales from the Gulf States (2001)
Originally collected by Hurston in 1927, this volume of folklore passed down through generations offers a glimpse of the African-American experience in the South at the turn of the century.
Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1934)
Hurston’s first published novel. Based loosely on her parents’ lives, it features a preacher and his wife as the main characters.
Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939)
An allegory based on the story of the Exodus and blending the Moses of the Old Testament with the Moses of black folklore and song. Narrated in a mixture of biblical rhetoric, black dialect, and colloquial English.
Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life (1930)
A collaboration between Hurston and Langston Hughes, this comedic play is set in Eatonville, Florida, and focuses on the lives of two men and the woman who comes between them. Due to a copyright disagreement between Hurston and Hughes, the play was not performed until 1991.
Mules and Men (1935)
Gathered by Hurston in the 1930s, the first great collection of black America’s folk world, including oral histories, sermons, and songs, some dating as far back as the Civil War.
Seraph on the Suwanee (1948)
A novel that explores the nature of love, faith, and marriage set at the turn of the century among white “Florida Crackers.”
Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica (1938)
Hurston’s travelogue of her time spent in Haiti and Jamaica in the 1930s practicing and learning about voodoo ceremonies, customs, and superstitions.
Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
The most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in African-American literature and the piece of writing for which Zora Neale Hurston is best known. Tells the story of Janie Crawford as she develops a sense of self through three marriages and grows into an independent woman.
Lies and Other Tall Tales. Adapted and illustrated by Christopher Myers. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.
The Six Fools. Adapted by Joyce Carol Thomas. Illustrated by Ann Tanksley. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.
The Skull Talks Back and Other Haunting Tales. Adapted by Joyce Carol Thomas. Illustrated by Leonard Jenkins. New York: HarperCollins, 2004.
The Three Witches. Adapted by Joyce Carol Thomas. Illustrated by Faith Ringgold. New York: HarperCollins, 2006.
What’s the Hurry, Fox? and Other Animal Stories. Adapted by Joyce Carol Thomas. Illustrated by Bryan Collier. New York: HarperCollins, 2004.
This book owes its deepest debt to my husband, Richard Simon, who reads and edits my work, nurturing and supporting it — and our family — every day. My life would be impoverished and my creative work impossible without him. I also owe a tremendous debt to my loved ones and early readers Viviana Simon, Hildegard McKinnon, Ayana Byrd, Abouali Farmanfarmaian, Rishi Gandhi, Dionne Bennett, and Nan Mooney; to Victoria Bond, cocreator of the first of these books, whose poetic voice was the key to finding Zora and Me; to Zora’s niece, Lucy Hurston, for reading the final draft and giving the book her warm praise and blessing; and to my tireless agent, Victoria Sanders. Gratitude and affection go to my editors Mary Lee Donovan, who has championed Zora and Me from the beginning and whose patience, eagle eye, and gifted editorial pen helped me hew closer to my vision, and Andrea Tompa, who carefully sorted wheat from chaff and lovingly held my hand by e-mail for months, and to the whole talented and supportive Candlewick family. Finally, my lifelong gratitude belongs to Zora Neale Hurston, whose life and legacy continue to be a beacon for so many of us who seek to bring the stories of beautiful everyday black life to the center of our cultural narrative.
For Richard Jonathan Simon and Viviana Mireille Simon
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2018 by T. R. Simon
Cover illustration copyright © 2018 by Sally Wern Comport
Epigraph from Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.
Copyright © 1937 by Zora Neale Hurston.
Renewed © 1965 by John C. Hurston and Joel Hurston.
Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2018
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number pending
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