ing graduation from the University of Wisconsin,
she worked as a reporter for several newspapers,
including the Milwaukee Journaland the New York
Evening World.Gale was engaged for some time to
playwright RIDGELYTORRENCE, whose successful
works included Three Plays for a Negro Theater
(1917), but the couple never married. In 1928 she
wed banker William Breese.
Gale’s connections to the Harlem Renaissance
also emerged through her support of some of its
most prominent writers. She was an advocate for
JESSIEFAUSETwhen she provided a preface for
Fauset’s third novel, THE CHINABERRY TREE
(1931). The testimony by Gale helped to persuade
Fauset’s publishers that material about mixed race
protagonists was of interest to a broad spectrum of
readers. Gale was a longtime and, by some ac-
counts, overbearing mentor for Margery Latimer,
the future wife of JEANTOOMER. It was Gale who
introduced the mystic GEORGES IVANOVITCH
GURDJIEFFto Toomer’s circle.
Bibliography
Derleth, August. Still Small Voice: The Biography of Zona
Gale.New York: D. Appleton-Century Company,
1940.
Kerman, Cynthia. The Lives of Jean Toomer: A Hunger for
Wholeness.Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, 1987.
Simonson, Harold. Zona Gale.New York: Twayne Pub-
lishers, 1962.
Williams, Deborah. Not in Sisterhood: Edith Wharton,
Willa Cather, Zona Gale and the Politics of Female Au-
thorship.New York: Palgrave, 2001.
Wilson, Sondra Kathryn, ed. The Opportunity Reader:
Stories, Poetry, and Essays from the Urban League’s
Opportunity Magazine. New York: The Modern Li-
brary, 1999.
“Game”Eugene Gordon(1927)
A jarring short story by EUGENE GORDON,a
BOSTONjournalist who wrote for the Boston Post
and was published in leading journals of the
Harlem Renaissance such as the AMERICANMER-
CURY and OPPORTUNITY. “Game,” published in
September 1927, was one of two stories awarded
first prize in the Opportunityliterary contest.
The protagonist is Sam Desmond, an over-
whelmed man who is harassed by his coworkers at
the Greater Boston Meat Market and at home by
his wife Marguerite. His wife telephones regularly
to demand choice meats for herself and for Mus-
solini, the cat that she indulges and Sam Desmond
despises. Gordon alludes to intraracial caste ten-
sions when he reveals the value that the light-
skinned Marguerite has for Desmond. His
antagonist Roberts, a dark-skinned deliveryman
who delights in calling Desmond “Snow White,”
once courted Marguerite but suggests that he gave
her up in order to avoid unflattering attention.
After suffering relentless emasculating indig-
nities at home and insistent jibes about his mar-
riage at work, Desmond takes revenge on his
wife. One day he has to transport the cat, which
has become sick by eating one of the fish bones in
Desmond’s paltry dinner, to the veterinarian. He
tells his wife that the cat has died. That evening,
as promised, he takes home “game” to his wife,
but it is the dressed remains of the cat rather
than the venison or rabbit that she has been nag-
ging him to provide.Bibliography
Wilson, Sondra Kathryn, ed. The Opportunity Reader:
Stories, Poetry, and Essays from the Urban League’s
Opportunity Magazine.New York: The Modern Li-
brary, 1999.Garden of MemoriesMazie Earhart Clark
(1932)
A volume of poems published by MAZIEEARHART
CLARK, who also published under the pseudonym
Fannie B. Steele. The subtitle of Garden of Memo-
rieswas a loving tribute “Dedicated To My Friends
In Memory of My Husband Sgt. George J. Clark”
and referred to her husband who, after his death in
World War I, was buried in Arlington National
Cemetery.Bibliography
Boelcskevy, Mary Anne Stewart, ed. Voices in the Poetic
Tradition: Clara Ann Thompson, J. Pauline Smith,
Mazie Earhart Clark.New York: G. K. Hall, 1996.Garden of Memories 177