adopted this appellation, reporting in 1925 that
Carlo was “the beneficent godfather of all sophis-
ticated Harlem” (quoted in Douglas, 288).
Van Vechten’s explorations of Harlem life were
widely publicized; he hosted many salon parties
for New York’s cultural elite in his Fifth Avenue
apartment, singularly inviting both black and
white guests. One Van Vechten soirée in June of
1925 was kicked off by George Gershwin playing
show tunes at the piano; Paul Robeson then sang a
number of Negro spirituals, and the evening con-
cluded with James Weldon Johnson reciting “Go
Down, Death” (Kellner, 200–201). When his novel
Nigger Heaven appeared in 1926, it sold more
copies than all of the books by African-Ameri-
can writers during the Harlem Renaissance com-
bined (Worth, 466). Hughes confirms this, noting,
“more Negroes bought [Nigger Heaven] than ever
purchased a book by a Negro author” (quoted in
Worth, 466). The original 16,000 copies sold out
immediately, and it went through nine printings
in its first four months.
A social novel more than a romance, Nigger
Heaven revolves around two central characters,
Mary Love and Byron Kasson, both of whom are
doing their part for the New Negro movement, as
they engage each other in discussions about cul-
ture and middle-class values and the place of the
“race” as a criterion for assessing the aesthetic value
of a work of art. Although scenes are set in Har-
lem cabarets, where jazz and gin flow and danc-
ers lindy hop to African rhythmic drum sounds,
Nigger Heaven contains few scandalous scenes, a
fact that adds an ironic punch to the sensationalist
title. Van Vechten had merely borrowed a popu-
lar term for the title of his novel: “Nigger Heaven”
was most commonly used to refer to the balcony
seats to which African Americans were confined in
segregated theaters and movie palaces. Van Vech-
ten used the expression metaphorically to connote
both Harlem’s location at the northern end of
Manhattan and the irony of its application: Read-
ers are meant to see that Negro society in Harlem
transcends racial stereotyping, transcendence even
a white man could accomplish.
Regardless, the novel, particularly its title, pre-
dictably stirred up enormous controversy in the
black press. The most violent response came from
W. E. B. DUBOIS, who hated it utterly; he began
his review in The CRISIS magazine with: “Carl Van
Vechten’s ‘Nigger Heaven’ is a blow in the face....
It is an affront to the hospitality of black folk and
to the intelligence of the white” (81). The most be-
nign response came from James Weldon Johnson,
who vigorously defended it. The scenes Du Bois
identified as “wildly barbaric drunken orgy,” John-
son argued, “set off in sharper relief the decent,
cultured, intellectual life of Negro Harlem” (393).
Whether in the cabaret or in the intellectual salon,
Johnson argues, “It is all life. It is all reality” (393).
Criticism was not limited to the black press.
Van Vechten’s father, who died seven months be-
fore Nigger Heaven appeared, was one of the first
of the notorious title’s long line of critics. In a let-
ter to Carl he wrote, “Your ‘Nigger Heaven’ is a title
I don’t like.... I have myself never spoken of a col-
ored man as a ‘nigger.’ If you are trying to help the
race, as I am assured you are, I think every word
you write should be a respectable one towards the
black” (quoted in Kellner, 210–11).
If there is any consensus about Van Vechten, it
is that he was not a racist. Perhaps his worst trans-
gression of Nigger Heaven and his Harlem exploits
was that he betrayed, as Emily Bernard describes
it, “a combination of naiveté and arrogance [that]
led him to believe he was unique, a white man who
had transcended his whiteness” (xix). The defining
contradiction of his race writing, and a cause for
critical tension, is that his belief in collapsing racial
boundaries is never reconciled with his celebration
of Negro exceptionalism. This issue alone, with all
of its relevant applications today, will ensure that
Van Vechten criticism will continue to flourish.
Van Vechten’s final, pragmatic legacy to the Afri-
can-American literary tradition was his donation
of the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collec-
tion of Negro Arts and Letters to Yale University.
The collection, named in his friend’s honor, holds
writings, letters, and memorabilia pertaining to
African-American life that Van Vechten had com-522 Van Vechten, Carl