And Bid Him Sing: A Biography of Countee Cullen
*Starred Review* The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s boasted two young poetic stars, Langston Hughes (1902–67) and Countée  Cullen (1903–46), whose reputations took off before either turned 20. They were close friends and frequent collaborators, yet Hughes became the prolific dean of African American authors, while Cullen was obscure by midcentury. Molesworth’s scrupulous biography, written so as to near-perfectly balance clarity of exposition and scholarly detail, rather demands that Cullen be reconsidered and returned to a higher standing. In contrast to Hughes’ exploitation of vernacular vocabulary, speech, and verse forms, such as the blues, and determination to speak of and for “the race,” Cullen, whose poetic hero was Keats, wrote in verse forms well established in the English literary tradition and eschewed black street speech, seeking to reach the entire universe of English readers (both men, of course, achieved that universality). Molesworth embeds Cullen’s best work (most notably, besides the poems, the brilliant satiric novel, One Way to Heaven, 1932) in the context of his life, which has its mysteries—beginning with scant records of his birth and childhood and including semicovert homosexuality (which neither of his two wives seemed to know about)—as well as  its gleaming highlights amid the other literary, artistic, and intellectual luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance who stride vividly through these pages. --Ray Olson