The New York Times Book Review - Michael P. Jeffries
Jeffrey C. Stewart's majestic biography…gives Locke the attention his life deserves, but the book is more than a catalog of this now largely overlooked philosopher and critic's achievements. Stewart…also renders the tangled knot of art, sexuality and yearning for liberation that propelled Locke's work…Stewart treats seemingly every sentence Locke wrote with great care, reconstructing his wanderings through Europe and Africa, black theater, communism and other geographic and intellectual terrain. The cost of this choice is the length and pace of the book, which is sharply written but unlikely to get readers' adrenaline pumping. The benefits of his thoroughness, however, are manifold. Chief among them is the book's example as a master class in how to trace the lineage of a biographical subject's ideas and predilections. The attachment and longing Locke experienced in relationships with his mother, friends and lovers exerted as much influence on his work as the texts he read and lectures he attended. One finishes Stewart's book haunted by the realization that this must be true for us all.
Publishers Weekly
★ 10/02/2017
Stewart (Paul Robeson: Artist and Citizen) offers a detailed, definitive biography of Alain LeRoy Locke (1885–1954), the godfather of the Harlem Renaissance and all around “renaissance man in the finest sense... a man of sociology, art, philosophy, diplomacy, and the Black radical tradition.” A Harvard graduate with a Ph.D. in philosophy, Locke became the first black Rhodes Scholar, studying in England and Germany; Stewart chronicles those travels as well as Locke’s travels in Egypt, Haiti, and the Sudan. The book also explores Locke’s personal life as a gay man who was attracted to the young intellectuals who inspired him, including sculptor Richmond Barthé and poet Langston Hughes. Stewart details Locke’s misogyny toward writers Jessie Fauset and Zora Neale Hurston, as well as his complicated relationships with W.E.B. Du Bois and his Howard colleagues, who resented Locke’s influence. Stewart creates a poignant portrait of a formidable yet flawed genius who navigated the cultural boundaries and barriers of his time while nurturing an enduring African-American intellectual movement. (Feb. 2018)
From the Publisher
"Locke represents a biographical challenge of unusual difficulty. Superbly educated, dazzlingly intelligent, psychologically complicated, and a cultural analyst and visionary whose books and essays helped to shape our understanding of race and modern American culture, Locke could also be petty and vindictive, manipulative and cruel. Also stamping his identity was his brave commitment to living fully as a gay man, despite its various dangers. Jeffrey Stewart, rising superbly to this challenge, has given us one of the finest literary biographies to appear in recent years." - Arnold Rampersad, Stanford University
"Jeffrey Stewart's long anticipated biography of the enigmatic Alain Locke fulfills its promise-and then some. It is magnificent! A panoramic portrait of one of the great thinkers, teachers, and literary entrepreneurs of the early twentieth century, The New Negro sheds fresh light on the intellectual firmament whose brightest star discovered African American modernism in an era of cosmopolitanism, colonialism, and catastrophe, and the man whose complex and tragic life left him defeated, unfulfilled, and underappreciated. . . . until now." - Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original "More than an account of Locke's professional and academic life, Stewart's book offers an integrated vision of Locke's professional and personal life and many details on the innermost aspects of Locke's personal life. This is without question one of the most comprehensive and insightful biographies of an important African American intellectual. Readers will be greatly rewarded for investing their time in its penetrating and revealing pages."- Jacoby Carter, CUNY John Jay College "Stewart creates a poignant portrait of a formidable yet flawed genius who navigated the cultural boundaries and barriers of his time while nurturing an enduring African-American intellectual movement."—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review "A magisterial biography... it brilliantly doubles as a history of the philosophical debates that girded black artistic triumphs early in the 20th century. A sweeping biography that gets deep into not just the man, but the movements he supported, resisted, and inspired."—Kirkus, Starred Review "[A] comprehensive, richly contextualized portrait of a key writer, educator, philosopher, and supporter of the arts."—Booklist, Starred Review "The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke is a vitally important, astonishingly well researched, exhaustive biography of the brilliant, complex, flawed, utterly fascinating man who, if he did not start the movement, served as its curator, intellectual champion, and guiding spirit... It is difficult to imagine a more able chronicler of Alain Locke's singular journey than Mr. Stewart."—Wall Street Journal "In describing Locke's life as a black man, a thinker and fighter in social causes, and a homosexual, Stewart... must in a way describe many different Alain Lockes. That such a gripping and cohesive narrative could be forged out of such fractured material is no mean accomplishment... Locke himself was constantly re-inventing in a life that defied easy categorization. Jeffrey Stewart has written the definitive study that life has always warranted - and, fittingly, he's made it excellent reading in the process."—Christian Science Monitor "Majestic... [The New Negro is] a master class in how to trace the lineage of a biographical subject's ideas and predilections. The attachment and longing Locke experienced in relationships with his mother, friends and lovers exerted as much influence on his work as the texts he read and lectures he attended. One finishes Stewart's book haunted by the realization that this must be true for us all."—New York Times Book Review "Locke's achievement—and what is still more fascinating, his complex and contradictory personality—can now be appreciated in full, thanks to a monumental new biography... Drawing extensively on Locke's correspondence and archive, and offering a richly informed portrait of his milieu, The New Negro is a major biography of a kind that even writers more famous than Locke are lucky to receive."—Harvard Magazine "A masterpiece of sustained craft, research, and historical scope."—New York Journal of Books "Stewart's sprawling, magisterial labor of love comes as a reminder that in those Birth of a Nation days a century ago, when race relations were far worse than they are now, a fiercely independent philosopher of color set down visions of black American freedom beyond economic agendas, nationalist visions, and political protest. This book draws Alain Locke out of the shadows and bestows his legacy to artists of all colors and genders seeking freedom from narrow-minded expectations and fear-mongering hypocrisy."
—Bookforum "The New Negro is a nuanced biography of a complicated, important figure in black and queer cultural history... Those brave enough to plunge in... will find much of interest to take away."—The Gay & Lesbian Review
"Stewart's biography is no mere birth-to-death catalogue of Locke's deeds in life; it is comprised of exquisite intellectual detail that Stewart presents as the defining engine of his subject's development."—Black Perspectives"Jeffrey C. Stewart's comprehensive biography of Locke is a surprisingly gripping read... Locke's life story, beginning as a young black man who was born to a middle-class family in Philadelphia, and who was especially close with his mother, is compelling right from the beginning."—Vox
JUNE 2019 - AudioFile
Bill Quinn’s sublime narration of this detailed biography of Alain Locke would meet with its subject’s approval. The writer, educator, and philosopher was ahead of his time in extolling black intellect and was instrumental in the development of the Harlem Renaissance. At points, especially during descriptions of literary or philosophical styles, Quinn’s voice can seem didactic—but these moments are few and come amid fascinating descriptions of Locke’s relationship with his mother and examinations of race, queer identity, the black American class structure, and early-twentieth-century intellectualism. Quinn’s unique voicing—neither overly persuasive nor detached—adds texture to the sometimes academic prose, raising interest while respecting the author’s scholarship. Listeners who go beyond this work to Locke’s writings will hear Quinn’s vocal styling in Locke’s words. M.P.P. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2017-10-30
A magisterial biography of the 20th-century philosopher, curator, and prime mover of the Harlem Renaissance.Alain Locke (1885-1954) is a critical—and complex—figure in any discussion of African-American intellectual history. In his youth, he was the quintessential black Victorian, impeccably dressed and mannered, as if comportment alone could conquer racism. That posturing made him blinkered at times; he tried to deny the prejudice he experienced as a Rhodes scholar and would later submit to a wealthy patron's condescending celebration of black "primitivism" for the sake of financial support. But Locke also wrote forcefully about the value of black artists and advocated strongly for writers like Jean Toomer and Langston Hughes. He edited the landmark 1925 issue of Survey Graphic, which put Harlem on the map as black America's artistic center, argued for black artists' central place in American culture in his selections for the book The New Negro, and curated African art exhibits that persuasively fitted that work within modernism. Stewart (Black Studies/Univ. of California, Santa Barbara; Paul Robeson: Artist and Citizen, 1998, etc.) often frames his subject's life as a series of one-on-one conflicts: with his mother, whose apron strings he found hard to untangle himself from; with more vocal black activists like W.E.B. Du Bois, who wanted more from a racial movement than Locke's oft-aloof aestheticism; with institutions like Howard University, which had a hot-and-cold relationship with him; and with the lovers the closeted gay, peripatetic Locke endlessly pursued, not to mention writers like Hughes who rejected his advances. This hefty, deeply researched book is sometimes overwhelming in its detail about Locke—every letter he wrote seems to be quoted—but it brilliantly doubles as a history of the philosophical debates that girded black artistic triumphs early in the 20th century.A sweeping biography that gets deep into not just the man, but the movements he supported, resisted, and inspired.
