There Is Confusion (AmazonClassics Edition)

De: Jessie Redmon Fauset

Narrado por: Tovah Ott

New York City, at the dawn of a new era...

Joanna Marshall is an aspiring singer obsessed with success, determined to overcome the racism and sexism that stand in her way. Her childhood friends Maggie Ellersley and Peter Bye confront similar barriers but with different goals in mind: Maggie is focused on finding love; Peter, on becoming a surgeon. But as their interests overlap and their ambitions collide, the course of Joanna and Maggie’s lives seems destined to change forever.

Written in response to the dominant stereotypes of the time, There Is Confusion paints a revelatory portrait of the lives, dreams, and resilience of the Black middle class in early twentieth-century America.

Revised edition: Previously published as There Is Confusion, this edition of There Is Confusion (AmazonClassics Edition) includes editorial revisions.

Public Domain (P)2021 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

I wanted to like this book

But I’m sorry to say I had a hard time connecting with it on audiobooks. I found the narration to be disappointing. I want to try to read a paper copy and see if I can recover my interest.

Prescient and Validating Story

Abusers always make their victims feel as if freedom and safety is some strange request no one has ever made before. There Is Confusion proves that the need for both has been present for much longer than the 1960's. The book is set in the years before World War I, but since it was published in 1924, we are getting the story from someone who was there. We are introduced to the Marshall and Bye families, each with a legacy of ambitious and intentional ancestors along with those less inclined to make a great name for themselves.

Joanna Marshall is a young woman in turn-of-the-20th-century Harlem, the daughter of a successful businessman who encourages her dreams of becoming a dancer. She meets Peter Bye, an orphaned boy who shows promise as both a surgeon and a musician. Although Peter is an orphan and poor, he comes from 'excellent family', and his name gives him entre into the black society of West Philadelphia (and yes I sang the Fresh Prince theme every time they mentioned it lol). There were black Byes and white Byes, the white having owned the black before the Civil War. Fauset explores the two families' histories, and we feel the anger and resentment of rights and dreams thwarted by racism. Yet in spite of these injustices, we are treated to a great love story. Peter and Joanna have much growing up to do, and are allowed to make mistakes, fall on their faces, and learn their lessons as fleshed out human beings.

Another great character is Maggie Ellerslee, a girl who is befriended by the Marshall daughters until she gets ideas above 'her station'. She is deemed unworthy of the son of the house, but she's not about to fade into Tragic Mulatta territory.

There is enough in this book for two or even three books, and I wish Fauset had lengthened the story to a series. When we get to WWI, it is the best writing in the book. Unfortunately it came as a bit of whiplash, as if Fauset intended it for its own book.

We meet kind and cruel people of both races, because humans are human. Instead of showcasing the horrendous tragedies that took place at the time, Fauset focuses on the everyday predatory behavior black people were subjected to, from figuring out where they could safely eat or shop to Joanna being called the n-word when she shows up for auditions. The characters talk about striving in hopes of things improving in the future, and we see exactly what the world is deprived of when creative minds are suffocated by hate.

If you want to read a fully-developed story of finding oneself and overcoming cruelty while facing one's own flaws and learning from them, you will find it here. The narrator is lively, but not sure she was the best fit for this book. I put the speed at .9 because she read a bit too fast for what was happening.