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Dust Tracks on a Road: An Autobiography

by Zora Neale Hurston

4.08 of 5 stars 4.08 · rating details · 3,587 ratings · 140 reviews

First published in 1942 at the heightof her popularity, Dust Tracks ona Road is Zora Neale Hurston’scandid, funny, bold, andpoignant autobiography, animaginative and exuberantaccount of her rise from childhood povertyin the rural South to a prominent placeamong the leading artists and intellectualsof the Harlem Renaissance. As compelling asher acclaimed fiction, Hurston’s ...more

Paperback , 336 pages

Published November 2nd 2010 by Harper Perennial Modern Classics (first published 1942)

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Nov 01, 2013 Rowena rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: autobiography , african-american , readalongs

"There is something wonderful to behold just ahead. Let's go see what it is." - Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road

I was a bit apprehensive about reading this book as I’ve read about the tragedies Zora Neale Hurston experienced in her life. This, however, turned out to be one of the most marvelous autobiographies I have ever read and more inspirational than discouraging.

I loved reading about Hurston’s childhood; she was such a precocious and inquisitive child who could easily have been s "There is something wonderful to behold just ahead. Let's go see what it is." - Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road

I was a bit apprehensive about reading this book as I’ve read about the tragedies Zora Neale Hurston experienced in her life. This, however, turned out to be one of the most marvelous autobiographies I have ever read and more inspirational than discouraging.

I loved reading about Hurston’s childhood; she was such a precocious and inquisitive child who could easily have been stifled creatively by the culture she lived in, a culture and society that did not encourage book-reading or learning, yet found ways to grow her creativity and imagination.

Her adventures and experiences as an adult were also interesting. I loved her opinionated, unapologetic personality. Her ideas about race and religion were probably considered radical in those days; she was definitely way ahead of her time.

And her writing, wow! She was adept at writing using different literary styles and idiomatic expressions, and she also respected the Southern dialect and people, therefore her understanding for the need of their different linguistic expression came across clearly in her writing and thought process. Her writing is also witty and she's also a wonderful storyteller. Her autobiography has several stories and folktales included. Also, she dislikes math as much as I do, as is evidenced by the following quote: "I did not do well in mathematics. Why should A minus B? Who the devil was X anyway?" I concur!

Her anthropology background and her positive experiences with white people made her see people beyond the veil of race, and instead just see the person. I thought that was wonderful.

I would unquestionably invite Zora Neale Hurston to my fantasy literary dinner party. She’s definitely inspirational.

"My search for knowledge of things took me into many strange places and adventures." - Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road
...more

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Dec 11, 2014 Cheryl rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Cheryl by: Rowena

Shelves: memoirs , american-lit , southern-groove , afro-american-flavor

Oh the magic and mystery that was Zora Neale Hurston. An indescribable childhood, deplorable kindred, a love life that was itself a puzzle. (In fact she does admit that her true love story with her second husband was somehow interwoven into her novel: "I tried to embalm all the tenderness of my passion for him in Their Eyes Were Watching God).

The first sentence of this memoir is a lyrical ambush:

Like the dead-seeming, cold rocks, I have memories within that came out of the material that went t

...more

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Jun 16, 2015 Shannon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own

Dust Tracks On a Road, Zora Neale Hurston’s autobiography, was published in 1942. This verbose but colorful book reads like a collection of short stories. Hurston often poses questions that she proceeds to answer but not without excluding the reader from her thought process. Sometimes by the end of the chapter the questions are still unanswered. But for Hurston it seems just thinking through it was enough. And so goes her autobiography.

Hurston always had a fanciful way about herself. We find out Dust Tracks On a Road, Zora Neale Hurston’s autobiography, was published in 1942. This verbose but colorful book reads like a collection of short stories. Hurston often poses questions that she proceeds to answer but not without excluding the reader from her thought process. Sometimes by the end of the chapter the questions are still unanswered. But for Hurston it seems just thinking through it was enough. And so goes her autobiography.

Hurston always had a fanciful way about herself. We find out early in the book that she was a storyteller from the beginning. A significant portion of the book is dedicated to stories that she recalls from her childhood. While Hurston’s mother was always supportive of her anecdotes, her grandmother found them troubling. I laughed when I read Hurston’s account of what happened when she was telling her mother a story within earshot of her grandmother, “Oh, she’s just playing,” Mama said indulgently. Her grandmother replied,“Playing! Why dat lil’ heifer is lying just as fast as a horse can trot. Stop her!”

Hurston’s mother died when Hurston was a teen and her father remarried. She found her stepmother impossible to get along with. They had physical altercations with Hurston admitting at one point that she wanted to kill the woman. After six years, Hurston had had enough. This discontentment is was caused her to venture out into the world. Things serendipitously fall into place for her time after time once she sets out on her own. She even writes, “From the depth of my inner heart I appreciated the fact that the world had not been altogether unkind to Mama’s child.”

Filled with quotable material, Dust Tracks On a Road is less about the chronology of Hurston’s life and more about how she makes sense of the cards life has dealt. ...more

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Feb 21, 2015 Jaylia3 rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015

Zora Neale Hurston approaches this moving memoir like a master storyteller, with wonderfully lyrical prose that reminded me a lot of her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Loved it.

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May 14, 2012 Dusty rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: graduate-school

I read somewhere a quote from Alice Walker that Zora Neale Hurston has a tendency to be exasperating. I think applied to Dust Tracks on a Road that may be putting the matter lightly.

Allegedly, the book is a memoir. Hurston is coy about this at its start; she says that after the success of her previous books her publisher asked her -- nearly had to force her -- to put onto paper the narrative of her own life. I would say what we ended up with is rather more the narrative of the life Hurston would I read somewhere a quote from Alice Walker that Zora Neale Hurston has a tendency to be exasperating. I think applied to Dust Tracks on a Road that may be putting the matter lightly.

Allegedly, the book is a memoir. Hurston is coy about this at its start; she says that after the success of her previous books her publisher asked her -- nearly had to force her -- to put onto paper the narrative of her own life. I would say what we ended up with is rather more the narrative of the life Hurston would've liked to have had: People who've investigated her biography have revealed that she was born ten years earlier than she claimed and that she almost certainly was not born in Eatonville, Florida, the first all-black American municipality in which she obviously takes so much pride. It's true that every autobiography is a sort of self-fashioning and requires us to read between the lines. But Hurston's autobiography pushes our suspension of disbelief to its limits, while she herself writes about all the liars she's encountered over the course of her research and travels. Anyway, like Walker said: Exasperating.

That said, however, the story is quite a romp. The youthful events Hurston describes may or may not have actually happened, but either way they're deliciously written and run the gamut from the poignant to the hilarious. The later chapters, which turn from recounting the past to reflecting on contemporary social issues, particularly the present and future of the so-called "Race question," keep the coy and joyful tone intact. I defy you to find a more energetic criticism of ethnic nationalism than "Seeing the World as It Is," one of the chapters/essays at the end of the book. I've seen other critics remark that the book's chapters don't gel, and while it's true that Dust Tracks is more a collection of essays than a novel or memoir, I wouldn't say that makes the book any less entertaining. After all, what keeps you reading isn't so much the suspense of what's to happen as the force of Hurston's personality. And what a personality!

A must-read for anybody interested in Hurston. Recommended for anybody else. Four stars. ...more

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Aug 25, 2007 Morgan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: summerreading2007 , memoirandbiography , non-fiction

It is very much situated in Hurston’s internal life which is vivid and magical. It is definitely a writer’s story. We get a distinct picture of the genesis of Hurston as a writer from a young child playing mostly by herself and inventing stories to an introverted youth who spent as much time as possible with her face in a book to an anthropologist who traveled to the American South and to the West Indies collecting the stories of others. Hurston is first and foremost a story teller but one drive It is very much situated in Hurston’s internal life which is vivid and magical. It is definitely a writer’s story. We get a distinct picture of the genesis of Hurston as a writer from a young child playing mostly by herself and inventing stories to an introverted youth who spent as much time as possible with her face in a book to an anthropologist who traveled to the American South and to the West Indies collecting the stories of others. Hurston is first and foremost a story teller but one driven by lush descriptions and imaginary narratives. Most of the action in this book is all in Hurston’s head. She was someone who truly lived the life of the mind.
Much of the book leaves you feeling as if she had no real intimacy with anyone besides herself. This couldn’t possibly be the case but her personal relationships remain mostly private. Towards the end of the book, we get a quick peak at Hurston the lover in an eleven paged chapter entitled Love . Despite the cursory nature of this section, Hurston does make eloquent and beautiful observations, but she keeps most things to herself. She writes: “What I do know, I have no intention of putting but so much in the public ears.”
As a whole I really enjoyed this book but I feel, like all texts, it must be viewed in the context in which it was written- I don’t doubt Hurston’s commitment to individuality or her understanding of race markers as socially constructed but the highlighting of all the white people who helped her along the way seems bizarrely self-conscious as Maya Angelou has noted. I have to wonder if these parts were emphasized in order to mollify a white audience.
Not surprisingly- there are no thoughts on reparations here, a point Hurston emphasizes several times throughout the book and again in the appendix. She is so firmly couched in individualism that she commits herself to the causes of no group even as she eloquently details the hypocrisy of foreign policy in Seeing the World As It Is .
My People! My People! seems to contradict her passionate belief in individualism as she ends with several generalizations on black folks- many of which made me cringe. What could have been an indictment of essentialism instead reinforces stereotypes. I could have definitely skipped this essay and been happy but the insightful and prescient nature of Seeing the World As It Is and Religion more than make up for the rest of the appendix. Religion made all the hairs stand up on my neck as it describes so precisely what is continuing to happen today with our current political climate. It would have made an excellent addition to Jesus Camp for sure.
...more

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Nov 26, 2012 Batgrl (Book Data Kept Elsewhere) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics , zora-neale-hurston , womens-studies-history

Will add more quotes when I reread. For now, here are quotes from Written By Herself .

I think this book is the best of all Hurston's works that I've read, and shows her strengths as a writer and storyteller.

p. 36

"In the classroom I got along splendidly. The only difficulty was that I was rated as sassy. I just had to talk back at established authority and that established authority hated backtalk worse than barbed-wire pie. My immediate teachers were enthusiastic about me. It was the guardians of

...more

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Aug 02, 2013 Andrew rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommends it for: some people

Alice Walker said Zora Neale Hurston's memoir was the most unfortunate thing she had ever wrote and I agree. Zora's memoir is a pack of lies, she said she was born in Eatonville when she was really born in Alabama. Zora also lied about her birth saying a kind white man helped her mother during child birth.

This book is not an autobiography it is more a collection of essays which Hurston wrote to appease her book publisher Lippincott. There is a lot of silence when I read this book, spaces that ne ...more

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Sep 29, 2007 Erin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Zora fans, women, memoir fans

Shelves: favorites , grad-school , african-american

Four years after writing Janie Mae’s journey in Their Eyes, Zora Neale Hurston was persuaded by her editor, J. B. Lippincott, to write her autobiography. The result was Dust Tracks on A Road, the partly fictionalized tale of a persona named Zora and her geographical, spiritual, and intellectual journey from Eatonville to New York and beyond. Their Eyes and Dust Tracks contain pronounced similarities in themes and in plot, and a comparison illuminates Hurston’s use of the journey motif. A restles Four years after writing Janie Mae’s journey in Their Eyes, Zora Neale Hurston was persuaded by her editor, J. B. Lippincott, to write her autobiography. The result was Dust Tracks on A Road, the partly fictionalized tale of a persona named Zora and her geographical, spiritual, and intellectual journey from Eatonville to New York and beyond. Their Eyes and Dust Tracks contain pronounced similarities in themes and in plot, and a comparison illuminates Hurston’s use of the journey motif. A restless desire to move and learn drives both Janie and Zora beyond the worlds that stifle them and toward the realization of their uncompromised, essential selves. The tenacity to seek new experiences and risk failure in increasingly more complex arenas comes naturally to both women. In Their Eyes, Janie defines herself by seeking her dream of fulfilling relationships. In Dust Tracks, Zora sees each person she encounters as a new stage in her journey, and she defines herself through the magnifying glass of these relationships. In each chapter of her autobiography, Hurston offers thoughts about the personal relationships she remembers, all of which serve to deepen her awareness of her skills, her needs, and herself.

"While I am still far below the allotted span of time, and notwithstanding, I feel that I have lived. I have the joy and pain of strong friendships. I have served and been served. I have made enemies of which I am not ashamed. I have been faithless, and then I have been faithful and steadfast until the blood ran down into my shoes…What waits for me in the future? I do not know. I cannot even imagine, and I am glad for that. But already, I have touched the four corners of the horizon, for from hard searching it seems to me that tears and laughter, love and hate, make up the sum of life."

--Dust Tracks on A Road, Zora Neale Hurston
...more

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Feb 16, 2015 Craig rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Full of voice, but lacking in momentum.

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Oct 26, 2014 Morgan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction , african-american

A beautiful, lyrical autobiography of one of my favorite authors, Zora Neale Hurston. Her way with words--"I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots" (227), for example, shows her unparalleled ability to convey emotion without soliciting sympathy. Her achievements, which many are unaware of, are many, and she was an amazing anthropologist as well as novelist; one can easily see her training in both in everything she writes. Her chapter "My People! My People!" is an observant tr A beautiful, lyrical autobiography of one of my favorite authors, Zora Neale Hurston. Her way with words--"I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots" (227), for example, shows her unparalleled ability to convey emotion without soliciting sympathy. Her achievements, which many are unaware of, are many, and she was an amazing anthropologist as well as novelist; one can easily see her training in both in everything she writes. Her chapter "My People! My People!" is an observant treatise on race that points out the hypocrisy of whites (condemning the Germans for invading and controlling France while England was controlling India, for one example); she brilliantly reminds readers of the many blacks who have fought for this country's freedom (Crispus Attucks) and those who fought against slavery, Simon the "Negro" who helped Jesus carry the cross to Calvary, and the troops who helped win the battle of San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt.

While many white writers attempt dialect (I'm looking at you, Kathryn Stockett) and use it as a way to either show divisions in class, color, education (i.e. The Help, Gone with the Wind), Hurston uses dialect as a way of anthropologically bringing readers into her world--she often has asides translating idioms or sayings--and as a way of appreciating the people as they are, without judgement or criticism. Hurston establishes Eatonville early on as a place where black achievement surrounded her, and her appreciation for the language is evident in early chapters of her autobiography.

Many parts of this felt more like a novel than an autobiography, partly because it doesn't follow conventional patterns of autobiographies that detail personal triumphs and professional successes in a chronological order. Hurston wrote this 18 years before she died, and she includes chapters detailing events from before she was born. Her playful interactions with her readers (the occasional "you" references) allow readers to feel they are a part of her story--an intimate of Hurston's, even.

This edition has a forward by Maya Angelou, who writes that this book is "written with royal humor and an imperious creativity" (xii), which calls into question the line between fact and fiction. But Hurston herself has been the subject of so much debate--lost for decades and rediscovered by Alice Walker in 1975, used as a metaphor for black women writers of the 1970s, reviled by Richard Wright, derided by some Black Nationalists, a contradictory writer and scholar who refused to follow popular politics or views but was friends with Hughes, Ethyl Waters, Carl van Vechten, and a host of other well-known artists, musicians, and writers. Her story is worth knowing and reading, and this autobiography is highly accessible, readable, and fascinating. ...more

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Nov 02, 2008 J Aurelius rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommends it for: anyone

Shelves: books-i-own

I don't feel like I just read a book. I feel like I read a few stories and a couple of essays.
Very good. very insightful. It was difficult going into this book after being immersed in JK Rowling's world! But I have so much to say about this book. I wish I hadn't read the appendix though...I enjoyed her language and her many anecdotes and things. Some if it takes a minute to understand or digest. I assume somethings are well hidden sarcasm or double talk but alas it's a good read anyway. She gav ...more

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Jun 28, 2011 Chana rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I like this book best out of all the Hurston books I've read, although I don't think it's the most popular one. It tells the story of her very unusual and kind of tragic life; what's most appealing to me about it are her memories of childhood. My favorite part is where she describes a game she used to play with a doorknob, a cornhusk, her mom's company soap, a bucket, and various empty spools of thread. (the cornhusk was in love with the soap, but he kept refusing to commit, in part, she says, b ...more

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Jun 16, 2011 Laura A. Warman rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Best autobiography ever!!!!!!! Hurston in no way pretends to be recollecting facts but instead reworks her story in a confusing jumble of who she thinks she would have liked to be. Unlike many autobiographies that do similar things, Hurston is pretty open with the fact that some things she made up. Her age continually changes and it is never easy to figure out at what stage in her life things happened or if they even happened. She remains true to the title- her life made tracks then slowly dust ...more

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Feb 18, 2009 Karen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It doesn't feel like I'm reading this autobiography of an acclaimed author, but rather like I'm sitting down with a funny, warm, smart friend and listening to her tell a fabulous story. Her wonderful sense of humor and ebullient spirit shine through, and it's fascinating to get more information about her hometown, Eatonville, the all-black Florida town that is also the setting of much of her wonderful novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.

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Jun 30, 2010 Melissa is currently reading it · review of another edition

My friend, and another great English teacher, Dorrian gave this to me. I read almost the whole thing today on the bus. Her writing is so beautiful it makes me cry.

She is brilliant, humble and wise. The chapter where she reflects on her life is worth a read.

Wow.

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Jun 28, 2014 Jeni Pearson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was beyond my expectations. The visualization of the characters influences, were exceptional! Overall, I loved how she found herself...LOVING ME!!

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Aug 03, 2014 Katherine Reaume-jackson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was enigmatic to me...I kept flicking back and forth...back and forth...trying to consider the author's perceptions and evolving points of view regarding family, race, love. It seemed that she was devoted to presenting an idea, but then contradicted herself elsewhere in the book.
Zora Neale Hurston has long been on my "to read" list. Perhaps this book will merit another reading with some time for thought separation.
The descriptions of her imagination with her dolls as a young girl are s ...more

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Dec 10, 2010 Whitaker rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A really great book shows us how everything is great and worth to die for

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Dec 22, 2014 Adelaide rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: zinn-recommendations , 2014

This may have been my first foray into the recommended reading list from Howard Zinn. I picked it for my online book club with friends in California, because I thought a new genre would be interesting. I ended up being very glad for the introduction and the appendix, because I certainly needed some interpretation with the work. Hurston's language switches back and forth from Florida vernacular to what she might call Howard English, which created a feeling of two worlds colliding.

I was surprised ...more

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Jun 28, 2013 Francesca Forrest rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was wonderful. ZNH tells her own story very engagingly, with plenty of reflections on race, self-determination, American culture, religion, friendship, publishing, the works. She's acerbic in her observations; I kept on writing them down. At the time she wrote the autobiography, she was at the height of her success; a few years later she was out of the public eye, and she ended her life in poverty and obscurity, which is a terrible shame. Well, no one should die alone and impoverished, thou This was wonderful. ZNH tells her own story very engagingly, with plenty of reflections on race, self-determination, American culture, religion, friendship, publishing, the works. She's acerbic in her observations; I kept on writing them down. At the time she wrote the autobiography, she was at the height of her success; a few years later she was out of the public eye, and she ended her life in poverty and obscurity, which is a terrible shame. Well, no one should die alone and impoverished, though.

Here are her words on poverty:

There is something about poverty that smells like death. Dead dreams dropping off the heart like leaves in a dry season and rotting around the feet; impulses smothered too long in the fetid air of underground caves. The soul lives in a sickly air. People can be slave-ships in shoes.

and on justice:

I too yearn for universal justice, but how to bring it about is another thing. It is such a complicated thing, for justice, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. There is universal agreement of the principle, but the application brings on the fight.

But there were lighthearted moments, too, like this, from her childhood, which I shared on Livejournal:

I used to take a seat on top of the gate post and watch the world go by. One way to Orlando ran past my house, so the carriages and cars would pass before me. The movement made me glad to see it. Often the white travelers would hail me, but more often I hailed them, and asked, "Don't you want me to go a piece of the way with you?"

They always did. I know now that I must have caused a great deal of amusement among them, but my self-assurance must have carried the point, for I was always invited to come along. I'd ride up the road for perhaps a half mile, then walk back.

I recommend it, especially if you're interested in ZNH's writing. It's both entertaining and thought provoking.
...more

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Mar 02, 2013 Connie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: autobiography-memoir , book-club , spring-2013 , african-american , southern-lit , florida , new-york

Dust Tracks on a Road ia an autobiography of Zora Neale Hurston who started life in povery, living mostly in rural Eatonville, Florida. She had exceptional intelligence, creativity, and drive, and went on to be educated at Howard University and Barnard College. She became a writer, anthropologist, collector of black folklore, and one of the voices of the Harlem Renaissance.

The book is full of colorful black vernacular and folklore. It chronicles the black experience as well as Zora Neale Hurston ...more

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Sep 24, 2013 Katy Stakebake rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Characters - On a scale of one to five, I would rate the characters in Dust Tracks on A Road a three. Not all of the characters were well described and I believe that this was only because the main character was the narrator as well. I believe some things about each character were left out therefore leaving most characters underdeveloped. I did enjoy reading about these characters, they were fun and likable. The characters were definitely believable the author was writing about real people that Characters - On a scale of one to five, I would rate the characters in Dust Tracks on A Road a three. Not all of the characters were well described and I believe that this was only because the main character was the narrator as well. I believe some things about each character were left out therefore leaving most characters underdeveloped. I did enjoy reading about these characters, they were fun and likable. The characters were definitely believable the author was writing about real people that had been in and influenced her life. “I wanted family love and peace and a resting place. I wanted books and school. When I saw more fortunate people of my own age on their way to school, I would cry inside and be depressed for days, until I learned how to mash down on my feelings and numb them for a spell. I felt crowded in on, and hope was beginning to waver.” (Hurston 97) This quote shows the author, narrator, and main character being true to herself. It gives raw emotion and ideas, really giving a picture of how she’s ultimately feeling at that moment. This is a consistent trait of Hurston’s writing all throughout this story.

Setting – On a scale of one to five, I would rate the setting a four. The setting is very important, the story starts in Hurston’s hometown and that is where she is brought up as a small child before her mother dies. In the beginning the time seems to drag especially the time she spends in Jacksonville while at school. The setting does affect the story because each new setting represents a different part or season of Zora’s life. I don’t think that the story could have taken place in another time period because it would change the whole story. The time period where African Americans were not fully seen as equal to white people, Zora wouldn’t have encountered some of the trials and tribulations she did in her life. “I was born in a Negro town. I do not mean by that the black back-side of an average town. Eatonville, Florida, is, and was at the time of my birth, a pure Negro town-charter, mayor, council, town marshal and all. It was not the first Negro community in America, but it was the first to be incorporated, the first attempt at organized self-government on the part of Negroes in America.” (Hurston 1) This quote exemplifies the idea that African American’s were still not equal with all people and that they worked hard to earn and accomplish things.

Plot – On a scale of one to five, I would rate the plot a four. This story was told in chronological order because it’s about Hurston’s life. She writes this story to tell about her life so she decided to start in the beginning. “The next day or so a Mrs. Neale, a friend of Mama’s, came in and reminded her that she had promised to let her name the baby in case it was a girl. She had picked up a name somewhere which she thought was very pretty. Perhaps, she had read it somewhere, or somebody back in those woods was smoking Turkish cigars.” (Hurston 21) She begins with her birth, explaining where and how she was born as well as her name came along, and moves forward from that. Hurston longs to explore the world and be out on her own, she describes her struggle to obtain and education from Howard University and Bernard College and also to establish a self-supporting writing career. Hurston also discusses her views on love, religion, race, and politics.

Theme – On a scale of one to five, I would rate the theme a three. The book doesn’t necessarily have a set theme. Hurston is just trying to describe her life so that readers may have a greater understanding of her and her background. The book does support a theme of African American culture. Another theme could be Zora’s struggle to obtain her college education and build a career. “I turned in written work and answered questions like everyone else, but he took no notice of me particularly until one night in the study of English poets he read “Kubla Khan” by Smauel Taylor Coleridge.” (Hurston 123) This quote portrays the struggle that Hurston endured while in college, she was often looked over and not taken seriously. No one thought that she would achieve very much educationally.

Personal Response – I found this book intriguing; I loved learning more about her life. I had already read a book by Zora Neale Hurston so learning more about her was a fun experience and I was able to realize why she wrote some things the way she did. I would recommend this book to a friend. I believe that others would benefit from learning more about Hurston’s life to be able to see what has made her who she was.
...more

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Apr 08, 2012 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Fascinating autobiography. Looking forward to reading more of the direct, poetical Ms Hurston.

"There is something about poverty that smells like death. Dead dreams dropping off the heart like leaves in a dry season and rotting around the feet...
the five years following my leaving the school at Jacksonville were haunted. I was shifted from house to house of relatives and friends and found
comfort nowhere. I was without books to read most of the time, except where I could get hold of them by mere ...more

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Feb 28, 2008 Ariel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir , 2005

I like Zora Neale Hurston and that carried me through this book a great deal. It's structurally problematic and thematically fractured. Yet Zora herself is so winning that you care about hearing what happened to her. This book was also put into contrast with Richard Wright's Black Boy both by the way a professor put them next to each other in the syllabus for a class on Ethnic American Autobiography which I took and by their feud. Wright's book may be more structurally sound (after all he's a no ...more

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Feb 03, 2014 Bonnie Gleckler Clark rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the first book I read as part of my neighborhood book club. After read this and joining in on the subsequent discussion, I was hooked (not only on Thorston but also on the book club). This is a pleasant read about a young girl and growing up in Central Florida, back in a time when everything moved a bit slower and injustice was handled locally (with expediency). Times were hard, money was short, but family was everything,

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Dec 03, 2008 Sara rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Reads much like the style of narrative in Their Eyes --very conversational and comfortable. However, some chapters struck me as being weaker than others. Indeed, the Afterword confirms that sections of the original publication were highly edited. Read the chapters in their unedited (except for grammar & spelling) entirety at the end of the book. Especially her original final chapter. Though the times (early WWII) supposedly seemed to demand it (1991 editor's comment), ZNH's editor really did ...more

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Nov 29, 2014 Mary rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir-biography , african-american , classics

First published in 1942 at the height of her popularity, Dust Tracks on a Road is Zora Neale Hurston's candid, funny, bold, and poignant autobiography, an imaginative and exuberant account of her rise from childhood poverty in the rural South to a prominent place among the leading artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance. As compelling as her acclaimed fiction, Hurston's very personal literary self-portrait offers a revealing, often audacious glimpse into the life -- public and privat ...more

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Jul 07, 2012 Peter Hoffmeister rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is what I said 60 pages in: Just started Dust Tracks, and it feels more like autobiography than memoir. Not used to that. Maya Angelou said Hurston embellished and lied in this book, but I love the folklore so far. Love her style.
But now, having finished, I was shocked by Hurston's total disregard for plot and reader. This was one of the worst books I've ever read. The draft (was this book even edited?) disintegrated into fragments of Hurston's attempts at humor. And she's not funny. Plus, ...more

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Mar 05, 2014 Glen Coco rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: feminism , memoirs , nonfiction

This is a well-written picture of what Hurston's life was like, and what life in general was like at the time. However, you get the feeling that Hurston isn't being entirely honest due to some of the things that she writes. She is also completely emotionless in her writing.

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About Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston was an American folklorist and author. In 1925, shortly before entering Barnard College, Hurston became one of the leaders of the literary renaissance happening in Harlem, producing the short-lived literary magazine Fire!! along with Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman . This literary movement became the center of the Harlem Renaissance.
Hurston applied her Barnard ethnographic tr ...more

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“I made up my mind to keep my feelings to myself since they did not seem to matter to anyone else but me.” — 104 likes

“I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world—I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.” — 83 likes

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