The Tastemaker: Carl Van Vechten and the Birth of Modern America
*Starred Review* In the prologue, first-time author White notes that you may not have heard of Carl Van Vechten (1880–1964), but that’s in large part because he was a difficult man to pin down, earning renown via a variety of endeavors (see Emily Bernard’s Carl Van Vechten and the Harlem Renaissance, 2012). Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, he came of age—preciously and self-importantly—in first Chicago and then New York City, and with the world in a postwar cultural flux, Van Vechten took action. In often controversial newspaper articles and criticism, essays, and later fiction (for which he finally achieved a wider though divided notoriety), he spoke his opinionated mind on race, sexuality, jazz and other new music, the arts, and more, embodying “the carefree spirit of excess and experimentation that defined Manhattan’s Jazz Age adventure.” His friends and acquaintances, many of whose photographs pepper these pages, were a who’s who of the best America’s melting pot served up, such as Langston Hughes, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Paul Robeson. Van Vechten was intellectually ahead of his time. Though a tireless champion of his beliefs and his belief in others, he was also untruthful and selfish, often ignoring his wife while lavishing attention on his male lovers. White’s engaging biography adeptly depicts America as a burgeoning cultural powerhouse, one that Van Vechten helped build. A marvelously written, masterful portrait of an exceptionally complex person. --Eloise Kinney