The Sweet Flypaper of Life

VERY GOOD condition — COVERS: Minor scratches and stress rubbings to face and hinges, respectively. Minor soiling, front and back. Top right front, and bottom left back corners slightly dogeared. BOOK: Age toning to text pages. Please inspect photos closely for condition details.

Here on offer is a very nice copy of Roy DeCarava's and Langston Hughes' The Sweet Flypaper of Life, a photographic essay of life in Harlem in the 1940s and 50s. The story is narrated by the fictional character Sister Mary Bradley. This copy is a 1st trade edition, 1st printing of the work published by Simon & Schuster in 1955. It is bound in softcovers.

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"The people in these photographs had no walls up. They just accepted me and permitted me to take their photographs without any self-consciousness." —Roy DeCarava

The Sweet Flypaper of Life is a "poem" about ordinary people, about teenagers around a jukebox, about children at an open fire hydrant, about riding the subway alone at night, about picket lines and artist work spaces. This renowned, life-affirming collaboration between artist Roy DeCarava and writer Langston Hughes honors in words and pictures what the authors saw, knew, and felt deeply about life in their city.

Hughes's heart-warming description of Harlem in the late 1940s and early 1950s is seen through the eyes of one grandmother, Sister Mary Bradley. As she guides the reader through the lives of those around her, we imagine the babies born, families in struggle, children yet flourishing. We experience the sights and sounds of Harlem as seen through her learned and worldly eyes, expressed here through Hughes's poetic prose. As she states, "I done got my feet caught in the sweet flypaper of life and I'll be dogged if I want to get loose." DeCarava's photographs lay open a world of sense and feeling that begins with his perception and vision. The ruminations go beyond the limit of simple observation and contend with deeper meanings to reveal these individuals as subjects worthy of art. While Hughes states "We've had so many books about how bad life is, maybe it's time to have one showing how good it is," the photographs bring us back to this lively dialogue and a complex reality, to a resolution that stands with the optimism of the photographic medium and the certainty of DeCarava's artistic moment. . . . "

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Roy Rudolph DeCarava (December 9, 1919 – October 27, 2009) was an American artist. DeCarava received early critical acclaim for his photography, initially engaging and imaging the lives of African Americans and jazz musicians in the communities where he lived and worked. Over a career that spanned nearly six decades, DeCarava came to be known as a founder in the field of black and white fine art photography, advocating for an approach to the medium based on the core value of an individual, subjective creative sensibility, which was separate and distinct from the "social documentary" style of many predecessors. . . .

[A major] . . . work is The Sweet Flypaper of Life. Published in 1955, it is a pictorial narrative of family life in Harlem with photographs by DeCarava and text by Langston Hughes. DeCarava wrote "in spite of poverty, you see people with dignity and a certain quality that contrasts with where they live and what they're doing." His Guggenheim fellowship helped fund the project while he spent a full year shooting the photographs for the book.

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James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. He famously wrote about the period that "the Negro was in vogue", which was later paraphrased as "when Harlem was in vogue."

Growing up in a series of Midwestern towns, Hughes became a prolific writer at an early age. He moved to New York City as a young man, where he made his career. He graduated from high school in Cleveland, Ohio, and soon began studies at Columbia University in New York City. Although he dropped out, he gained notice from New York publishers, first in The Crisis magazine and then from book publishers, and became known in the creative community in Harlem. He eventually graduated from Lincoln University. In addition to poetry, Hughes wrote plays and short stories. He also published several nonfiction works. From 1942 to 1962, as the civil rights movement gained traction, he wrote an in-depth weekly column in a leading black newspaper, The Chicago Defender.

The above text was taken from, respectively, Simon & Schuster publishing and Wikipedia.
[https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Sweet-Flypaper-of-Life-(hardcover)/Roy-DeCarava/9780999843826]