The return of Simple /

Hughes (1902-1967), whose work accelerated the recognition of African American literature, is remembered mostly for his poetry. But Hughes also touched the minds of millions through the brief narrations of the fictional Jesse B. Semple, or ``Simple,'' which first appeared in 1943 in his column in the Chicago Defender and, later, in the New York Post. Here, edited by a teacher at Spelman College, is an enlightening collection of these social commentaries. Half of the selections have never appeared in book form; the others are drawn from five previous Simple collections, all out of print. Harper groups her choices into four sections: ``Women in Simple's Life''; ``Race, Riots, Police, Prices, and Politics''; ``Africa and Black Pride''; and ``Parting Lines.'' Topics range from criticism of superficial beauty (``Wigs, Women and Falsies'') to animal rights (``Money and Mice'') and the equation of the word ``black'' with ``evil'' in American slang (``That Word Black''). Throughout, the persistence of some issues from the 1940s through the present is striking and infuriating. In ``Population Explosion,'' for example, written in 1965, Simple criticizes the racist underpinnings of birth-control and sterilization proposals, while in ``Liberals Need a Mascot,'' from 1949, he takes an insightful jab at the hypocritical politically correct. Also discussing Pan Africanism, children's rights, socioeconomic imbalances and African American animosity toward the police, Hughes, through the sometimes hyperbolic but always critical commentary of Jesse B. Semple, challenges the widespread notion of the unsophisticated ``common man.'' Welcome back, Simple. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

All five books featuring Jesse B. Semple (``Simple''), the character Hughes created for his weekly Chicago Defender column, are out of print. Half the stories here are drawn from those books; the remainder have never before appeared in book form. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A welcome reintroduction to the pioneering African-American writer's most memorable fictional character. Already a popular poet, playwright, novelist, and key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes (1902-67) introduced Jesse B. Semple (``Simple'') to readers in 1942 in his Chicago Defender column, ``From Here to Yonder,'' as a way to convince black Americans to support the US war effort. From his familiar perch in a fictional Harlem bar, Simple held forth on a variety of subjects in his own inimitable, folksy way, and over the next 23 years his musings were collected in five volumes. The Return of Simple brings together mostly uncollected columns as well as a few favorites from previous collections. Simple's sometimes tall tales of growing up in the South and migrating to Harlem are timeless. Race riots, low wages, interracial marriages, adopting an African name, and birth control are some of the subjects on which he expounds to his erudite, educated fellow barfly, who always acts the straight man. Then there is Simple's favorite subject--``womens,'' including his wild cousin Minnie (``The Lord, I reckon, gave her them ball- bearing hips, but the Devil must of taught her how to use them''); Zarita, who is always ``drinking him up''; and his second wife, Joyce (``Eve in the garden could not be no better, because Eve had no stove on which to cook''). Simple speaks with a poetic and easy logic (``It is better to be wore out from living than to be worn out from worry'') in a voice that comes straight out of the African-American folk tradition, but Hughes's slices of urban black life belong also to the larger continuum of great American humor, from Mark Twain to Armistead Maupin. Quite simply, an indispensable part of our cultural heritage.