Wallace Thurman (1902–1934)

Really liked the premise but not sure about the storytelling. Managed to jump all over the place.
Moved hurriedly through a lot of instances so it was hard to understand characters’ reactions or handlings of situations.

I’m still not sure why Emma Lou was so into Alva. I got nothing out of their relationship.

Very heavy-handed.
Not a lot of growth with Emma Lou. Sure, she got a decent job. But she seemed to complain a lot about people. People who supposedly talked about her and behind her back. But I never got any sense that she tried to befriend these people. She just liked to harp on the fact that she wasn’t the same shade of color as them. It got old real fast.… (més)

For me the most interesting thing about this novel is its publication date. Nella Larsen's Passing was also published in 1929, and George Schuyler's Black No More came out in 1931. (Maybe that interests me primarily because I prefer the writing in those two novels. I've remembered characters from Passing longer than I'll remember any of these characters, and it's hardly surprising I'd enjoy a satire like Black No More more than a book that isn't meant to be fun for its readers or its main character.) They were concerned with Black characters who choose to "pass" as white, or who opt not to. As its title suggests, The Blacker the Berry is about darker skin.

The novel isn't subtle. Its protagonist, Emma Lou Morgan, is explicitly only skin-deep. The darkness of her skin is what defines her, inside and out. She's treated badly because she's so dark, but it's strongly implied that she's so self-conscious she doesn't understand that her treatment isn't always as bad as she imagines, and we're shown that she in turn values others according to the lightness or darkness of their skins. Though we're told that she was raised in a way that made it almost inevitable she'd internalize such an attitude, there's never any suggestion that anyone other than Emma Lou needs to or can do better. And that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Most of the characters in this novel need to do better. Almost a century later, Emma Lou's whole country still needs to do better.… (més)