Hitting a straight lick with a crooked stick : race and gender in the work of Zora Neale Hurston

This comprehensive study examines the ways Hurston circumvented the constraints of the white publishing world and a predominantly white readership to critique white culture and its effects on the black community. Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick is the first single-authored book-length study of Zora Neale Hurston and provides the most thorough and meticulous examination of her full body of work. A number of earlier critics have concluded that Hurston simply capitulated to external demands, writing stories white people wanted to hear. Susan Edward