An engaging collection of letters, between Langston Hughes, poet and author, and Carl Van Vechten, who was a writer, publisher, photographer, and devotee to Negro, as his term of the time was, arts and letters. Van Vechten was about 20 years older than Hughes and their correspondence extends from the 20s through to Van Vechten's death in 1964. Of the two, Hughes is the more interesting, having had a life of writing, travel and engagement with "his people," that is the colored people of the world. Both men were involved with the Harlem Renaissance and knew most of those connected with that period.

Hughes has a remarkable presence on the page--he is frank, funny, warm and expressive. It seems unsurprising how many pictures show him with a great smile. In spite of a largely unsupportive family and the persistence of prejudice and Jim Crow, Hughes was so talented, so smart, and so clear about his aims that his success (not financially--he seems to have been hard up most of his life) and his reach culturally have been and remain great.

Since the collection of letters continues through Van Vechten's life and close to the end of Hughes' (he died in 1967, I believe), it was interesting to watch them age: especially in light of the darker times arriving toward the end of their lives. (It is an odd thing to say, and I cannot really explain it, that the 60's, Civil Rights, Black Power should constitute something darker than Jim Crow, the heyday of lynchings, and segregation, but in much of the art put forth there was a lightness, a hope, a faith in the future. And works of this era do not seem to me to deserve the dismissal (although they did receive it sometimes) of purveying stereotypes. Hughes well knew the injury and injustice of racism, but attitudes about the appropriate artistic and cultural expression did change. It's a progression I wish I understood better.)

Toward the end of the book, the exchanges became less interesting to me. For one thing, both men were busy with deadlines, details of publishing and presenting theater works. Van Vechten was consumed with the archiving of his collections of art, writings, etc. that were being assembled for the James Weldon Johnson Archive at Yale. Van Vechten's tone became ever more hectoring to Hughes, and at one point he chides Hughes for signing his letters "Sincerely", which Van Vechten seemed to perceive as cold. It didn't strike me that way, but did make me wonder about currents of disappointment, insecurity, jealousy that may have affected Van Vechten.

The editor of the volume, Emily Bernard, says in her introduction: " This book is a story about two people, one famous, one formerly famous but now mostly unknown, who lived during an extraordinary period in American history. Between the two of them, they knew everyone, and nearly all of those people come to life in the pages that follow. Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten helped make the movement we know as the Harlem Renaissance, and for that reason their story is meaningful. But the most important story in this book is about a friendship--one complicated by race, power, and money. Like most friendships, it endured its share of ups and downs. But unlike most friendships, this one thrived because of difference, not in spite of it." That is a more than adequate summary and reason to read the book.

One last thing, the notes and appendices are well thought out and thorough. The notes are placed after each letter and so are accessible. The appendices include Van Vechten's introduction to The Weary Blues, entitled "Introducting Langston Hughes to The Reader," and Hughes' address memorializing Van Vechten's life. Both are touching.
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