what seemed to [him] a family more typical of
Negro life in Kansas.” Not Without Laughterwas an
autobiographical venture, one in which Hughes in-
dulged himself fully. “I gave myself aunts that I did-
n’t have,” he revealed in his autobiography The BIG
SEA(1940), “modeled after other children’s aunts
whom I had known but I put in a real cyclone that
had blown my grandmother’s front porch away.
And I added dances and songs I remembered”
(Hughes, 228–229). The philanthropist CHAR-
LOTTEOSGOODMASON, Hughes’s exacting patron,
provided him with funds that enabled him to se-
quester himself and to write. He spent his entire se-
nior year of college revising the book and, following
graduation, “stayed on the campus in a big, empty
theological dormitory all alone” and “cut and pol-
ished, revised and re-wrote” while “the people in the
book seemed to walk around the room and talk, to
me, helping me write” (Hughes, 229). He was grate-
ful for the help of LOUISETHOMPSON, “a sympa-
thetic and excellent typist” with whom he would
later work on the ill-fated MULEBONEand who
“must have done certain pages over... so often she
could have recited by heart their varying versions”
(Hughes, 229). Mason critiqued the early drafts of
his manuscript and also critiqued the early versions
of the titles, So Moves This Swift Worldand Roots of
Dawn.Her first response to the finished draft came
in the form of a 24-page letter with detailed notes
about the writing and suggestions for revisions. The
book enjoyed a wide national and international dis-
tribution to such places as Tokyo, Bombay, Paris, and
Melbourne. Unfortunately, however, the publication
of Not Without Laughtercoincided with the onset of
the GREATDEPRESSION, and sales were affected.
The plot focuses on Sandy, a young boy who
lives in Kansas with his Christian grandmother,
Hager Williams. Aunt Hager, a hardworking laun-
dress, is a pillar of her community and “[a]ll the
neighborhood, white or colored, called [her] when
something happened. She was a good nurse, they
said, and sick folks liked her around... sometimes
they paid her and sometimes they didn’t” (10).
Hager has three daughters: Tempy, a respectable
middle-class wife, Anjee, a free-spirited woman
and wife, and Harriet, a blues singer and prosti-
tute. The youngest of the three girls, Harriet suf-
fers it seems, because she essentially “had no
raising, even though she was smart” (34).
Sandy is the son of Anjee and her husband
Jimboy Rogers. Rogers is a laborer, and when the
novel opens he has left his family for yet another
lengthy absence. His departures are due in part to
the limited employment opportunities available to
people of color. “[W]hat was there in Stanton any-
how,” muses Anjee shortly after she receives a let-
ter from her husband, “for a young colored fellow
to do except dig sewer ditches for a few cents an
hour or maybe porter around a store for seven dol-
lars a week. Colored men couldn’t get many jobs in
Stanton, and foreigners were coming in, taking
away what little work they did have” (33). Like his
father, to some degree, Sandy too is a perennial
wanderer. He also is a gifted musician, and he
eventually becomes a powerful blues singer. He
steadily becomes the child of his father, a man
who, on his return from his latest expedition to se-
cure work, quickly begins to play for his family, let-
ting his fingers run “[s]oftly... light as a breeze,
over his guitar strings, imitating the wind rustling
through the long leaves of the corn” (55).
The novel chronicles the migrations of
Hager’s children, journeys that are prompted by a
range of desires. Ultimately, Anjee leaves, and the
young protagonist Sandy is the only one left living
with his grandmother. The relative quiet in the
house allows Sandy to hear even more stories from
his cherished, hardworking grandmother, and he
absorbs them all. They sit, “the black wash-woman
with the grey hair and the little brown boy” and he
listens to her “Slavery-time stories, myths, folktales
like the Rabbit and the Tar Baby; the war, Abe
Lincoln, freedom.” Hager’s stories are enriched by
“years of faith and labor, love and struggle,” and
her grandson, who “was getting to be too big a boy
to sit in his grandmother’s lap and be rocked to
sleep as in summers gone by... sat on a little stool
beside her, leaning his head on her legs when he
was tired. Or else he lay flat on the floor of the
porch listening, and looking up at the stars”
(188–189).
These tender and unforgettable moments en-
able Hager to have a strong and loving impact on
her grandson. As a result, Sandy is less inclined to
indulge his musical calling so that it jeopardizes
the relationships that he cherishes. Despite his
love of music and his desire to pursue it, Sandy
honors his grandmother’s lessons about the mostNot Without Laughter 395