Dust Tracks on a Road: An Autobiography

By Zora Neale Hurston

A candid, funny, bold and poignant autobiography from one of literature's most cherished voices. Dust Tracks on a Road is the enthralling account of Zora Neale Hurston's rise from an impoverished childhood in the rural South to celebrated artist of the Harlem Renaissance. 

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Feb 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9780735253636

Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston was a novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist. She wrote four novels (Jonah’s Gourd Vine, 1934; Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1937; Moses, Man of the Mountains, 1939; and Seraph on the Suwanee, 1948); two books of folklore (Mules and Men, 1935, and Every Tongue Got to Confess, 2001); a work of anthropological research, (Tell My Horse, 1938); an autobiography (Dust Tracks on a Road, 1942); an international bestselling nonfiction work (Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo,” 2018); and over fifty short stories, essays, and plays. She attended Howard University, Barnard College, and Columbia University and was a graduate of Barnard College in 1928. She was born on January 7, 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama, and grew up in Eatonville, Florida.

Reviews for Dust Tracks on a Road

[francescaforrest · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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.

[alanteder · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Entertaining autobiography of an American roots writer.Review of the Audible Audio edition (2016) narrated by Bahni Turpin (was the Audible Daily Deal on February 19, 2019).This was an entertaining overview of American roots writer Zora Neale Hurston's (1891-1960) life and career as written from her own point of view in 1942. It doesn't provide a complete biographical arc. Although the audiobook shares a cover image with 2010's Perennial Modern Classics Deluxe edition it does not include the Maya Angelou foreword, the Valerie Boyd biographical note, and the P.S. bonus materials sections. Some of that extra material would have been useful for context as the latter part of the autobiography becomes more of a series of essays on religion and slavery. This is followed up with the final 6th of the audiobook (about 2 hours of the total 11. 4 hours) being a series of appendices with further essay material (some of which repeats stories that already appear in the biography proper). So some confusion does result in understanding why the book is structured the way it is and how much it has now been rearranged by latter day editors.Still, it is enormously entertaining for the most part and was enhanced by actress Bahni Turpin's vocal performance. Hurston interjects various digressions of anecdotes and folk tales into her through story which provides considerable opportunity for Turpin to perform everything from Boston Irish accents to Fire & Brimstone pulpit speeches. I have only otherwise read Hurston's classic "Their Eyes Were Watching God" and likely some of her other works are now hard to find, but I think they would make for similarly enjoyable Americana roots reading in the present day. I had not known previously that Hurston was a student of anthropologist Franz Boas for instance or about her gathering of information on Hoodoo rituals and practices in Louisiana and those of Voodoo in Haiti.

[snash_44 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Zora's autobiography was most enjoyable for its language full of inventive metaphor. Particularly towards the end she gets up on her soap box a bit too much for my taste.

[sparemethecensor · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Even without a tutored read, I can wholeheartedly recommend Dust Tracks on a Road. Hurston is a phenomenal writer. I love the way she uses local and contemporaneous dialect seamlessly in her higher brow and lower brow stories within the autobiography.Having read the introduction, I did feel like I could spot a few places where she was keeping distance from the reader. I also wished to learn more about the Harlem Renaissance than she includes (which I may try to do later). But I liked this regardless. Of particular note, in my opinion, are the chapters where she talks about her writing process (fascinating) and the story of her mother's death (wrenching).

[ghost_boy-691444 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"Light came to me when I realized that I did not have to consider any racial group as a whole. God made them duck by duck and that was the only way I could see them. I learned that skins were no measure of what was inside people. So none of the Race cliché meant anything anymore. I began to laugh at both white and black who claimed special blessings on the basis of race. Therefore I saw no curse in being black, nor no extra flavor by being white."

To me, this quote pretty much summarizes Zora's philosophy on life. I've said this once and I'll say it again: Zora was Zora. She wasn't trying to be anyone but herself. This isn't a "feel sorry for me" autobiography. This is a "this is who I am" autobiography. She was a storyteller and a somewhat of a humorist and that is what you will get reading this I hope.

I think most people know Zora as the author of Their Eyes Were Watching God. I did love that book, but that's not the only thing she wrote. She was a very talented woman and deserves more credit than being the author of that book. She wrote a ton about folklore. She grew up liking fairy tales and mythology stories. She did a lot of traveling and gathered oral stories to put on paper for the world to read. Even though this is non-fiction, I liked the fact it read like a Zora folktale as well.

I honestly like her views on race. I don't talk about it much, but I share the same views as her and were not even the same race or sex. She believed that race didn't define who you were as a person. She saw good and bad in all race. It's funny reading this because she was living in a time oddly similar to what is happening now. Yet her view points are polar to what the social media likes to claim which is true. She didn't agree with Democrats, Socialist, or Communist. She didn't like people who took pride in there race nor did she like them forming groups. To her blacks were not a group, but individual people. She'll even admit blacks don't get along with other blacks. She didn't get along with her "folks" either. All she had to do was say she was a Republican and they would turn the other way. Although, most people think she would be a Libertarian today.

I also love what she said about her writing. Her first book wasn't liked by her black peers. It wasn't politically angry enough for them. I haven't read her first book yet, but doesn't seem like it has anything to do with politics. Her whole life she just wanted to write about what she wanted to write about. Apparently, she had people telling her what to write. This isn't mentioned in the this book because it's after, but her last book was abut a white woman and she was told blacks can't write about whites...well she proved them wrong.

I really loved this book and I love Zora. She teaches me not to fall into a label. Be myself. She also teaches me to move on with my life. Love the here and now. Don't bottle up emotions from the past because i'm are only hurting yourself. If I ever write an autobiography I hope to produce something like this, not exactly like this, but clearly this book inspired me more than I thought. This book is get for independent thinking.