Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, 1925-1964. - Review - book review

Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, 1925-1964 edited by Emily Bernard Alfred A. Knopf, February 2001, $35.00, ISBN 0-679-42631-0

Today, Langston Hughes' life and work are celebrated, while the mention of Carl Van Vechten's name draws "blank stares," in the words of Emily Bernard, the editor of this volume of letters between the two men. When the pair met, in the mid-1920s, Hughes was a 22-year-old budding poet coming to Harlem for the first time; Van Vechten was a white, middle-aged novelist, essayist and flamboyant man about town with a genuine interest in black culture.

Sparked by mutual affection, and a common interest in literature and all things black, Hughes and Van Vechten's correspondence spanned four decades. Their relationship survived every development from Van Vechten's generous promotion of Hughes' career to Hughes' loyalty when his friend was reviled for the infamously titled novel Nigger Heaven, and from Hughes' emergence as the brightest star of the Harlem Renaissance to the dwindling of Van Vechten's own fame and influence. The letters evoke a mutual, platonic love, one that was tempered by honesty ("I shouldn't wonder if you are pretty nearly through with poetry," Van Vechten writes at one point, criticizing a manuscript of Hughes' verse).

As with any collection of letters, some of the entries in Remember Me to Harlem are more interesting than others. But overall, the book is a gratifying portrait of two people who followed their passions and seemed to have had an extremely good time along the way.

There are also "amusing"(to use Hughes' favorite word) passages about such luminaries as Zora Neale Hurston and Chester Himes, plus photographs of the literati, many of them taken by Van Vechten. An excellent introduction by Bernard, a professor at Smith College, sheds light not only on the friendship between Hughes and Van Vechten, but on the Harlem Renaissance as a whole.

Clifford Thompson, a writer of fiction and essays, is the editor of Current Biography.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Cox, Matthews & Associates
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group