Elastic Lines For An Elastic Life In 'Fire!!'

Critics who write about Zora Neale Hurston always seem to write about her contradictions — and no wonder. The extremes she embodied were manifest in her history, her lifestyle, her work and even her legacy. Born in 1891 — though she habitually subtracted years from her age — she grew up in tiny Eatonville, Fla., receiving no encouragement to develop intellectual pursuits. Yet she became a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance, publishing seven books and (a book with its own complicated history: Dismissed as lightweight by contemporaries like Richard Wright, it's Hurston's best-known work today). She was also drawn to retell the sweeping Biblical myths of Moses and Herod.