Volume 35, Number 13 · August 18, 1988
The Honorary Negro
By Darryl Pinckney
Letters of Carl Van Vechten
selected and edited by Bruce Kellner
Yale University Press, 301 pp., $25.00
The Tattooed Countess: A Romantic Novel with a Happy Ending
by Carl Van Vechten
University of Iowa Press, 286 pp., $9.95 (paper)
Parties
by Carl Van Vechten
reprinted by Avon, $1.95 (paper)
Infants of the Spring
by Wallace Thurman
reprinted by AMS Press, $12.50
Carl Van Vechten enjoyed a career as a critic, novelist, and photographer, but he is mostly remembered as a personality of what he called the 'splendid drunken twenties.' A flamboyant fan of artists and the arts, he had a passion for collecting, a gift for making friends, and a flair for being on the right spot. His idea of the cultural vanguard was a smart party, and he was, indeed, very much a helpful guest, cheering up the down-in-the-mouth, recommending manuscripts to publishers, bringing lions and lambs together. As a talent scout for modernism he worked both sides of the aisle. He was an early, tireless champion of Gertrude Stein, and his adamant association with the Harlem Renaissance has kept his name alive. The title of his best-known novel, Nigger Heaven, has a lasting market audacity.
Review, 4599 words
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