The Living Is Easy

This remarkable novel by one of the youngest member of the Harlem Renaissance takes place in Boston, amid middle class Black strivers, right before WWI. It's complex and thoughtful, filled with characters who are tormented by their desires to measure up to their white neighbors. It's especially a delight for Bostonians, who will revel in the geography. Cleo Judson, a stubborn, driven woman, has married Bart, the "Boston Banana King", a successful fruit and vegetable entrepreneur, who is much older and tolerates her spendthrift ways because he loves her and their daughter Judy. When Cleo sees an opportunity to move to a large house on a block in Roxbury that borders all-white Brookline, she seizes it and lies to Bart about the monthly show more rent and about her scheme to bring her three sisters up from the South and away from their husbands. Cleo wishes to recreate her lovely Southern childhood, where, as eldest, she ruled over her sisters and idolized their loving parents. We know what happens with the best laid plans, and Cleo is no exception. Her raging and frequently contradictory feelings manifest themselves in her bullying and lying to everyone, assuring herself that it's for their own good. She's an extraordinarily memorable character, with a blazing personality, always manifesting her cruelty and kindness and continually shocking the reader, who all the while must recognize the overlying racism that forces Cleo's actions. show less

Book #5 The Living is Easy - highly recommended
Jackie Onassis spent some of her final years encouraging Harlem Renaissance writer Dorothy West to finish her second novel, The Wedding. She would visit West at her home in Martha’s Vineyard almost weekly. The first 3/4 of the novel is a marvel. But Onassis died before West completed it and West lost her will to do so after the loss of her friend. An editor completed it – and did so poorly.

So, if you want pure Dorothy West you have to read her first novel, The Living is Easy. This novel, set circa 1915 Boston, features the shenanigans of a married black woman, Cleo, who was born in the south and wants more than anything to become a Bostonian and live the good and mannered life. It show more shows a panoply of black society, and is a comedy of manners, a black “Middlemarch”, if you will. It captures black people at a time when they were figuring out who they could become and how they were going to fit into America. Early 20th century black high society stretched to include anyone with a non-agricultural or domestic job to Harvard-educated doctors.

At this time in Boston, black people were able to ride on the trolley without taking the back seat and could go into any movie theater, but they faced challenges as they tried to outrun the shadow yet cast by slavery. How to get acknowledged and financially rewarded for your achievement? What is the obligation of the freer northern black population to those still in the south? Should your black newspaper publish events of discrimination or only the successes? Should there be a black newspaper? How should rich black people engage with poor ones? Should people born out of a mixed-race union be given a high status or derided? Should you accept your classmates’ apology for beating you up because they thought you were walking with a white woman who is actually your paler sister? Should you stay in Boston or push to be the only black family in Brookline? Needless to say, these questions can all be asked today. Here they are answered by the funny and devious, yet tragic, character Cleo.

This book is a wonderful time capsule and is written with exquisite skill. It is more of a slice of life than a good story, but it’s a juicy slice. show less

Interesting story of a black family in early 20C Boston but the protagonist's redeeming qualities did not overcome her utter selfishness and hard heart.

With Reconstruction, in the South, came Jim Crow, and many southern blacks came north to escape segregation. If they were successful enough, and light-colored enough, they were "tolerated" to live among the Whites of Boston, who resented what they considered low blacks, the poor sharecroppers who sought better treatment and wages in the North.

West's book is about the young protagonist who left her family in Virginia, when she was young, to go where she could seek out high society. Her beauty helped her find a successful business man, 23 years older than her, and she began her campaign to rule him and the money he could make. Her character is the opposite of likeable, as she is cold to her hard-working husband, and constantly lies to him show more and schemes to get money from him to live life on her terms. Autobiographical. show less

Cleo is one of the most despicable characters I have ever had the displeasure of reading about.

This book can be summarized up something like this.

Once upon a time a devilish child named Cleo was born. Her sisters had the misfortune of being very innocent and naïve. She took advantage of them. She hurt them. She was happy.

Cleo grew up and moved away. Her sisters started to have normal lives. Cleo was unhappy about this. This simply would not do. They were too far away from her tentacles. She tricked them. She hurt them. She was happy.

The elite colored Boston community was also caricatured. They were Cleo's equals in cruelty and heartlessness. She was among her peeps.

I love a good villain, but Cleo was just too much for me! show more Unfortunately that was not the only problem I had with this novel. The storyline just did not interest me, and I struggled to finish this one. show less