An Interview with Valerie Boyd

Q. Why did you choose this subject? Why Zora Neale Hurston?
A. In many ways, I feel that Zora chose me. I felt a really strong connection with her when I read Their Eyes Were Watching God in 1981, during my freshman year of college. I was just amazed that a book published in 1937 could speak to me so clearly and so resonantly through the decades. After that, I read everything I could find by her and about her, including Robert Hemenway's 1977 biography of her. By 1990, when the first Zora Neale Hurston Festival was held in her hometown of Eatonville, I had become a full-fledged Zora enthusiast. So I attended that festival with a group of friends. We had such a good time that we decided to make it an annual pilgrimage.

Then, at the 1994 Hurston festival, Hemenway gave a talk in which he critiqued his own book, pointing out things that he felt he'd missed -- as a man writing about a woman, as a white person writing about a black person. He said, "It's time for a new biography to be written, and it needs to be written by a black woman." Well, when I heard those words, I just had this knowing that this was something I would do. But the idea of it was daunting, and I couldn't figure out how to fit it into my life at the time. So I just put it on the back burner: "Maybe in ten years, I'll write a book about Zora," I told myself. But God had other plans. About a year and a half later, I got a call, seemingly out of the blue, from a young literary agent, John McGregor, who'd gotten my name from a friend. He was looking for someone to write a biography of Zora Neale Hurston, and he wanted to know if I was interested. Well, at that point, I just felt that the big finger of Fate was pointing at me -- like this was something I was destined to do. So I had no choice but to say yes.

Q. The photograph of Hurston on the cover is striking. Where did you find it?
A. Ernie Suggs, a colleague at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (where I work as an arts editor), first told me about this photograph. He had come across it when he did a story about Zora for the newspaper that he used to work for in Raleigh-Durham, N.C. The picture was shot by a man named Alex Rivera, who was a student at the North Carolina College for Negroes (now North Carolina Central University) back in 1939, when Zora briefly taught there. I went to Durham and met Mr. Rivera and several other people -- now in their 80s and 90s -- who'd been students at the school when Hurston was hired to develop a drama department there. After an interview, Mr. Rivera told me about this photograph. "Would you like a copy?" he asked casually. Well, the moment I saw the photo, I knew I wanted it for the cover of the book.

I love this photo; I love the way Zora is standing while everyone else is sitting. And I love it because it is such a metaphor for Zora's life: She was always of the people, but beyond the people, too, in many ways. I also love the story behind the photo: The way Mr. Rivera remembered it, it was just a spontaneous snapshot. He called to Zora in the stands, "Miss Hurston, can I take a picture?" Zora stood up, he snapped the photo, and that was it. And more than 60 years later, it found its way into my hands and onto the cover of the book.

Q. As you point out in your book, Hurston lied about her age constantly. She was always at least 10 years older than she let on. Why did she do this, and what complications did it cause in her life?
A. Well, for her, it didn't cause many complications at all. She created that fiction about her age when she was 26 years old and maintained it throughout her life -- always using it to her advantage. In fact, the reason she started the lie in the first place was so that she could qualify for free public schooling, which she wasn't eligible for at 26. So she had to make herself a teenager so that she could get free schooling. And then it became convenient, for various reasons, to stick with this myth throughout her life.

Q. Did you like Zora as much at the end of writing this book as you did at the beginning?
A. I liked her more. I liked her more and I admired her more. By the time I finished the book, after six years of immersion in Zora's life, I had so much admiration for her. For her tenacity, for her passion, for her consistency, for her unwillingness to compromise about the things that meant the most to her, for her commitment to living the life of her dreams, against all odds.