The Living Is Easy
Dorothy West; Adelaide M. Cromwell; Morgan Jenkins
Feminist Press at The City University of New York
2020
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The first novel by Dorothy West--author of The Wedding and the youngest writer associated with the Harlem Renaissance--was one of only a handful to be published by black women during the 1940s. The Living Is Easy tells the story of Cleo Judson, daughter of Southern sharecroppers, determined to integrate into Boston's black elite. Married to the "Black Banana King" Bart Judson, Cleo maneuvers her three sisters and their children--but not their husbands--into living with her, attempting to recreate her original family in a Bostonian mansion. Written in elegant and piercing prose, The Living Is Easy is a classic of American literature by a groundbreaking African American woman writer whose work deserves widespread and enduring recognition.