flood,” introduced a cautionary note about the
value of self-restraint and the politics of survival in
an aggressive world.
The story revolves around the unfortunate fig-
ure of Byron Kasson, who, like so many people of
color, finds his aspirations derailed by racism and
limited, even nonexistent opportunities for ad-
vancement. Kasson, an aspiring writer, is employed
as an elevator attendant. His sweetheart is Mary
Love, a young woman who works as a librarian.
The plot twists include Kasson’s unfortunate se-
duction and encounters with Lasca Sartoris, a
flamboyant Harlem heiress whose character sug-
gests the real-life figure of A’LELIAWALKER. After
a series of seedy encounters with gamblers, prosti-
tutes, and other less-than-uplifting characters,
Byron finds himself enmeshed in the unsavory
world that he has worked so hard to avoid. The
novel closes as he shoots another man, Randolph
Pettijohn, a lover of Lasca Sartoris, and realizes
that his imminent arrest will separate him forever
from the virtuous Mary Love.
Nigger Heavensold briskly when it appeared.
The first run of 16,000 copies sold out within
days, and the press had to produce nine more
printings of the work within the first four months
of the novel’s release. In order to avoid a lawsuit
for copyright infringement, Van Vechten was
forced to delete the lyrics of a popular song that
he had incorporated in the novel without permis-
sion. In a frantic move, he appealed to Langston
Hughes for help, and the poet produced a new set
of lyrics for incorporation into the novel. Van
Vechten paid Hughes $100 for his taxing and life-
saving night of work.
The novel satirizes the energetic, chaotic, vi-
brant, and colorful world of Harlem in the 1920s.
It revolves around a librarian and a writer whose
love affair is doomed by the hardships and racial
realities of the world around them, and it includes
thinly transparent parodies of numerous well-
known figures and locations of the Harlem Re-
naissance.
The book has enjoyed numerous reprintings,
including a later edition for which Langston
Hughes, Van Vechten’s close friend, provided
poems. The book prompted many to respond to its
content and politics. W. E. B. DUBOIS, the emi-
nent scholar and editor of THECRISIS,despised the
work. After admitting that he read the book “and
read it through because [he] had to,” DuBois con-
cluded emphatically that it was “a blow in the face,
an affront to the hospitality of black folk and to
the intelligence of white” (Lewis, 180). In a memo-
rable December 1926 Crisis article, DuBois blasted
Van Vechten for “express[ing] all of Harlem life in
its cabarets... Such a theory of Harlem is non-
sense. The overwhelming majority of black folk
there never go to cabarets. The average colored
man in Harlem is an everyday laborer, attending
church, lodge and movie and as conservative and
conventional as ordinary working folk every-
where.” Others agreed with DuBois. HUBERTHAR-
RISON, writing for the PITTSBURGH COURIER,
decried it as an awful dialect book that also re-
vealed Van Vechten’s fascination with unsavory el-
ements of life. CLEVELANDALLENnearly prompted
a riot when he denounced the work before a large
meeting at the 135th Street Branch Library and
prompted other outraged Harlemites to speak out
vehemently at the gathering.
JAMESWELDONJOHNSON, who, like DuBois,
was affiliated with the NATIONALASSOCIATION
FOR THEADVANCEMENT OFCOLOREDPEOPLE,
liked the work. He suggested that the real debate
was not about the title but the content of the book
itself. In his review of the novel, published in OP-
PORTUNITY,Johnson suggested that Van Vechten
had “achieved the most revealing, significant, and
powerful novel based exclusively on Negro life yet
written.” He went on to praise Van Vechten for
paying “colored people the rare tribute of writing
about them as people rather than as puppets.” In
the Harlem community, prominent and wealthy
socialites like A’LELIA WALKER, whose identity
Van Vechten parodied in the novel, refused to as-
sociate with Van Vechten and refused him entry to
social gatherings and parties.
Published three years after CLEMENT
WOOD’s NIGGER:A NOVEL,Van Vechten’s story
was marketed by the Knopf publishing company
as a serious meditation on African-American life.
The publicity was in keeping with Van Vechten’s
regard for the material. He had insisted fre-
quently that the novel was focused specifically on
Negroes and their daily lives rather than on the
more controversial, explosive elements of their
lives in America.Nigger Heaven 391