There Is Confusion

Jessie Redmon Fauset's first novel, There is Confusion, focuses on the experience of three Black children growing up in early twentieth-century New York: Joanna, the ambitious performer; Peter, the would-be surgeon with seemingly no real drive; and Maggie, the impoverished one who yearns for security and respectability. This is a far stronger book in its first half, when the main characters are still young and Redmon Fauset is writing a nicely observed novel of manners. About the midway point through, it shifts into a rather melodramatic mode and the characters become less people and more moralizing mouthpieces. Still, interesting for the glimpse it affords into the world of middle-class African Americans at the turn of the last century.

A Jane Austen-like story set in the African American communities of New York and Philadelphia at the turn of the 20th Century. Beautifully written and plotted, with characters the reader is fully invested in. I loved this book!