Home to Harlem Home to Harlem Home to Harlem Home to Harlem Home to Harlem (Northeastern Library of Black Literature) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Claude McKay's Home to Harlem is, as the title implies, a book that deals with the spiritual center of the African-American artist movement in the 1920s - the Harlem Renaissance. Written in 1928, it can be seen as a representative novel for the time in which African-American's art and literature were for the first time met with great attention by critics. One main problem of this acclaim by whites was that their increased interest in blacks' creative output evolved around primitivism, the idea that blacks were naturally more emotional, spiritual, and sexually uninhibited than whites. A great number of African-American artists of the period participated in this view, trying to focus on those 'strengths' that made them beautiful and thus respectable in the segregated society ruled by racial discrimination. The danger of this was the development of stereotypes expressing a kind of positive racism, which resulted particularly from the white audience's interest in simply enjoying the 'primitive' inhabitants of black Harlem.
At first sight, Home to Harlem affirms these stereotypes. Through the eyes of protagonist Jake Brown, it describes Harlem and those living there as at times ridiculously sensuous creatures whose lives evolve around nightclubs, jazz, and sex. The novel's language offers a rich description of Harlem's nightlife and its women with their "tantalizing brown legs", their faces "rouged and painted like dark pansies", their "brown flesh draped in soft colourful clothes", their "brown lips full and pouted for sweet kissing", and their "brown breasts throbbing with love" (8). These and countless other depictions of Harlem's people clearly link sensuality and naturalness to the black race, this way seemingly affirming whites' stereotypical expectations of the time. A deeper look at the subject, however, reveals that McKay probably has had more in mind.
The author appears very aware of the technique of primitivism he uses. Yet, on the story level, the Harlem community is not all that harmonious. Repeatedly, fights between male rivals occur that nearly end in killings, showing that Harlem is still an ethnic ghetto at the time that had more to it than enjoyable nightlife. Financial problems, unfair working conditions, or the contrast of American racism to Europe's more equal (though not totally equal) treatment of blacks during Jake's stay abroad in World War I allow a look under the surface of the 'Harlemania.' Jake's newly found friend Ray, an assumed alter ego of the author, contributes his intellectual thoughts on the situation of blacks in America to the story, implying that the sole concentration on creative self-expression will not bring about racial equality in America - political engagement is necessary as well. However, none of the novel's characters becomes an active fighter for African-American's civil rights on a wider scale (although Jake carries a moral sense that exceeds his love for the simple pleasures of life).
Instead, the novel expresses, in my opinion, at least two major ideas: on the one hand, there is the most obvious message of black being beautiful, focusing on their proven ability of creative self-expression - although constantly threatening to confirm whites' primitivist preferences of the time and thus orienting themselves along whites' expectations again. On the other hand, however, the novel shows that despite their common pleasures, all blacks are individuals, starting at their different shades of skin color, but going further to their different opinions and problems, plus their hardships of everyday life, which make them nothing less than human beings who want and should have the same rights as any other human being in the country and the world. The novel's weakness is simultaneously its strength, for the play with whites' stereotypes ridicules those to some extend, this way showing that stereotypes are superficial and often racist ideas that can never be found in perfection in any human being, no matter what skin color or lifestyle.
Despite its rather weak plot, the novel puts the rich descriptions of the time's Harlem and its inhabitants above its story of celebrating home, making and losing friends, and finding romantic love. It is an easy read that reveals its deeper meanings on second thought - particularly recommended as material for an academic treatment before the backdrop of the Harlem Renaissance and African-American history.

After reading an issue of Black Issues Book Review, I decided to give this book a try. It is a great story and perfectly relays all the nuances and moods that are New York. The main character meets a prostitute named Felice his first night in Harlem and his quest for her begins there. Try this one out; you will enjoy