NIGGER HEAVEN

Carl Van Vechten was a white novelist and literary critic who was fascinated by American Negroes and by Manhattan's Harlem, "the Mecca of the New Negro." NIGGER HEAVEN (1926) is the story of a young Harlem librarian, Mary Love, and a recently arrival in Harlem, college graduate and wannabe writer, Byron Kasson. *** Negroes of Harlem in the 1920s are portrayed as obsessed with shades of "blackness." Both Mary and Byron are the same shade of light brown. Each could pass for Spanish --or "better" -- if he or she cared to. Both neither does. On the other hand, there are 8,000 Negroes in New York City who have chosen to pass, to become white. Is this the solution to enmity between the Caucasian and Negro races: intermarriage till all the world is white? *** Mary, hitherto prim and reserved, is instantly smitten when she meets the young man newly come from Philadelphia with a degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Within two more meetings, Mary is mad for Byron and shows it. He, on the other hand, has a weakness for women and had had to leave Philadelphia when an irate husband caught him in an affair with his wife. *** Mary is wooed by a respectable, self-made, wealthy dark man but turns him down as uneducated. Meanwhile Byron, the stereotypical angry young man, refuses to use letters of introduction from his father and others to land a good job. He writes a short story that is rejected repeatedly. At the same time he becomes the kept man, till she tires of him, of rich, exotic Lasca Sartoris. She is easily bored but at the zenith of their affair, Lasca shouts to Byron, "I want you to possess me, to own me. I want to be your slave." *** Throughout the novel the Negro characters, along with a handful of whites fascinated by Harlem night life, agonize about injustices meted out from one race to another. Whites push people of color down from above. Uneducated negroes pull "the talented tenth" down from below. If only their skins were paler, all would be well!NIGGER HEAVEN is full of Harlem atmospherics, Negro Spirituals, jive talk, hot, primitive music and dark-skinned people who are thought to enjoy life more than priggish white folk ("pinks") living farther south in Manhattan. The book ends with a helpful "Glossary of Negro Words and Phrases. Examples: -- "arnchy: a person who puts on airs"; "bardacious: marvellous";"C.P.T.: "coloured people's time, i.e., late"; "kinkout: hair-straightener"; "scronch: a dance"; and "unsheik: divorce." *** When it first appeared, NIGGER HEAVEN was widely reviled, mainly for its horrible title. But from the beginning until today, important people and critics have loved the book. It counts today as a "classic" of the Harlem Renaissance (1919 - 1935. A good read. -OOO-