Chapter 9, Books & People Summary and Analysis

Chapter 11, Books and Things, opens with the author explaining that she has written a few short stories and has the inkling for a whole book. She is skittish about doing this, especially since she doesn't want to write about "the Race Problem" (p. 171). She informs readers that writing about race is the latest cultural trend. Her attitude towards this does show in her book. When racial issues assert themselves undeniably, then she takes them up. Otherwise she doesn't, because that isn't her main interest and she doesn't even want it to be an issue, nor does she go out of her way to make an issue of it. She wrote Jonah's Gourd Vine, as her first full length book. She believes that she was secretly helped as well as having been overtly assisted by others in order...