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Infants of the Spring Wallace Thurman
(1932)
The second novel by WALLACETHURMAN, an en-
terprising and popular writer of the Harlem Re-
naissance. The MACAULAYPUBLISHINGCOMPANY,
which hired Thurman as a copy editor and reader,
published the book. It appeared just two years be-
fore Thurman died of tuberculosis in 1934.
Infants of the Springwas a project that tested
Thurman’s patience and philosophies on writing.
In a letter to friend HAROLDJACKMAN, he de-
scribed his efforts to “make the novel elastic with-
out having first learned the boundary lines so that
I could steer a clear course.” Like the writers ZORA
NEALEHURSTONand LANGSTONHUGHES, Thur-
man’s writing benefited from the timely financial
assistance of a patron. Elisabeth Marbury, a well-
traveled literary agent, responded to his request for
$500, and it was these funds that enabled him to
ensconce himself in the Jamaica, New York, home
of THEOPHILUSLEWIS and to continue writing.
Thurman dedicated the novel to his mother, Beu-
lah. His inscription, which read “To Beulah the
goose who laid a not so golden egg,” reflected his
troubled perception of his immediate family and by
extension, perhaps, also of himself.
The novel takes its title from Hamlet, and
Thurman invokes the Shakespearean play in one
of the two epigraphs to the novel. The lines he
chooses introduce the themes of mortality and pre-
mature ends that emerge so strongly in the novel:
“The canker galls the infants of the spring / Too oft
before their buttons be disclosed, / And in the
morn and liquid dew of youth / contagious blast-
ments are most imminent.”
Infants of the Springwas an autobiographical
narrative and one of the most vivid published ex-
posés of contemporary life in HARLEM. Reminis-
cent of CLAUDEMCKAY’s HOME TO HARLEM
(1928), the novel traced the adventures of two
male protagonists and the colorful, hectic worlds in
which they moved. Thurman generated rather
transparent parodies of friends, close associates,
and figures whom he did not hold in high regard.
When she read the work, Zora Neale Hurston
wrote to CARLVANVECHTENto tell him that
“You and I are in it in a small way” and character-
ized it as “[n]ot a bad book at all.” Langston
Hughes was extremely supportive of his friend. He
characterized the work as “provoking” and “brave”
and declared, “You have written a swell book...
your potential soars like a kite breaking patterns
for negro writers” (Rampersad, 213).
The primary setting is NIGGERATIManor, a
residence modeled after the actual rooming house
at 267 West 136th Street in which Thurman lived.
The protagonist is Raymond Taylor, a “small and
slender Negro” with “smooth dark skin” and fea-
tures that are “neither Nordic nor Negroid, but
rather a happy combination of the two, retaining
the slender outlines of the first, and the warm
vigor of the second, thus escaping both Nordic
rigidity, and African coarseness” (16). He is man of
color who is given to assessing the motives and
needs of those around him. The central characters
with whom Taylor interacts are Samuel Carter, the
singer Eustace Savoy, his friend Lucille, the artists
Paul Arbian and Pelham Gaylord, and a visiting
Canadian named Stephen Jorgenson. Over the
course of the novel, the friendship between Taylor
and Jorgenson deepens. Jorgenson is a relatively
sheltered and naive COLUMBIAUNIVERSITYgradu-
ate student. He also is a man who is prone to mak-
ing direct and troubling references about race. In
the opening chapter, for instance, he confesses that
he was “frightened” when he came to Harlem:
“After all,” he declares, “I had never seen a Negro
before in my life, that is, not over two or three, and
they were only dim, passing shadows with no im-
mediate reality. New York itself was alarming
enough, but when I emerged from the subway at
135th Street, I was actually panic stricken... I felt
alien, creepy, conspicuous, ashamed. I wanted to
camouflage my white skin, and assume some pro-
tective coloration” (15). Samuel Carter, another
white friend, has other aspirations, though he finds
himself thwarted and unable to become the “rebel-
lious torchbearer, a persecuted spirit child of Eu-
gene Debs and Emma Goldman, subject to frequent
imprisonment, and gradually becoming inured to
being put on the rack by the sadistic policemen
Infants of the Spring 269