Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick

HITTING A STRAIGHT LICK WITH A CROOKED STICK by Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God) is a newly published collection of short stories from the Harlem Renaissance. Originally published between 1921 and 1934, they are arranged chronologically and illustrate Zora Neale Hurston’s evolution as a writer. These 21 stories involve explorations of racism, sexism, class differences, regionalism, coming of age themes and human conflict. Many are set in Hurston’s home town of Eatonville, Florida while others take place in Harlem. Writing in The Washington Post, Naomi Jackson (The Star Side of Bird Hill), notes that “Hurston's work has been a guiding light for my own writing, especially its radical insistence on the value of singular attention to black communities, the black vernacular and black oral traditions of speech and storytelling.” 

HITTING A STRAIGHT LICK WITH A CROOKED STICK received a starred review from Booklist.