This is the audio-taped version of the book. There are six unabridged stories in two tapes with running time of three and a quarter hours.
These stories are:
Drenched in Light: a young black girl's desire to find and enjoy her own individuality under the intimidating eye of her highly critical grandmother, written with humor but also reflecting a bitter reality.
The Conscience of the Court: the loyalty of a falsely-accused maid to her employer, a woman she has known since birth, and her watchfulness of her employer’s belongings to the degree of hurting her own self.
Muttsy, giving an inside portrait of the 1930’s Harlem.
The Gilded Six-bits: a story about marriage, how marital harmony is threatened by greed and lust and how forgiveness smoothes the hurts.
John Redding goes to Sea: a heartrending story of a young man's desire to see the world beyond his small town against his mother’s wishes but with his father’s backing because his father had the same dream once, and how it all comes to an end.
Sweat: A hard-working woman's revenge against an abusive husband and her reward.

the quality of the audio tapes and the human side of the stories. In addition to being of black experience, they reflect human experience as well. Also, the reader, Renee Joshua-Porter, does justice to the stories and the local accent with her smooth, flowing voice.

Zola Neale Hurston, one of the great writers and anthropologists of the 20th century was born in Alabama but the records show her birthplace as Eatonville, Florida on January 7, 1891. She died, after suffering a stroke, on January 28, 1960 in a home for the needy in Fort Pierce, Florida --in St. Lucie County Welfare Home-- where the new library there was named after her in 1993.
Zola Neale Hurston’s life is full of struggle. A few years after Hurston was born, her mother died. Very soon afterwards, her father sent her away to a school in Jacksonville. When her father’s money didn’t last to pay the school, Zola Neale Hurston was left on her own at fourteen years of age to work as maid, then to work in a repertoire company, and later with a clergyman in Baltimore. At 26 years of age, she attended the Morgan academy -a high school- then Howard University where she met her husband but her first marriage lasted only four years. Her second marriage years later, ended up in divorce also. In 1920 Hurston received her associate degree and published her first short story, “John Redding Goes to Sea.”
On an invitation, Zola Neale Hurston went to New York, and was later employed by Fannie Hurst, a writer, as a secretary. Afterwards, she studied anthropology in Bernard College, graduating in 1928.
Zola Neale Hurston’s writing was ignored until the 1930’s for she did not directly focus in the racial struggle. Her work, however, is very important because it is centered in black experience and has successfully preserved the culture and dialogue of the era, even though, she had then been criticized of making a caricature of the black culture. Much later, she was appreciated during the second half of the twentieth century.
Although her best known work is the novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God", she has a rich collection of folklore and has written her memoirs, essays, a play, novels and quite a few stories. Her books are: Jonah's Gourd Vine, Mules and Men, Tell My Horse, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Moses, Man of the Mountain, Dust Tracks on a Road, Seraph on the Suwanee, Sanctified Church, Mule Bone (A play written with Langston Hughes), Spunk, The Complete Stories, and Barracoon.

the stories are entertaining and the tapes are beautifully made. They can be listened to wherever you might wish, while relaxing or driving. They are well worth your time.

I listened to these audio tapes several times over because as entertaining, educational, and revealing of the black culture these stories are, lots of praise should go to the reader, Renee Joshua-Porter, for she has given them life and energy with her faultless diction and captivating voice.

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Created Dec 11, 2003 at 10:10pm • Submit your own review...