SOURCE: “The Short Story,” in Silence to the Drums: Survey of the Literature of the Harlem Renaissance, Greenwood Press, 1976, pp. 110-37.

In the following excerpt from her book-length study of the literature of the Harlem Renaissance, Perry notes the Dostoevskian tone of West's short stories and her effective portrayal of the conflicts inherent in black middle-class life.

… In 1926 the second prize in the short story competition of the Opportunity contest was shared by Zora Neale Hurston for “Muttsy” and an unknown, first-published eighteen-year-old, Dorothy West, for her story entitled, “The Typewriter.”¹ West said of herself at the time: “I was born in Boston … and educated in the public schools, for which, I must confess, I had no great fondness. To be conventional, my favorite author is Dostoevsky, my favorite pastime, the play. I am rather a reticent sort, but I am intensely interested in everything that goes on...